Ben was about 8 years old the day he came bounding up the stairs at our friends’ house.
“Hurry, Momma, Nate is in peril!”
Two-year-old Nate, the son of my good friend, Denise, was apparently climbing a bookcase in the basement. As concerned as we should have been for Nate’s safety, I must admit Denise and I were both more immediately struck with Ben’s choice of vocabulary.
Peril isn’t really a word you hear most 8-year-old boys use.
It has been this way since Ben first began talking. His vocabulary has always been on the rich side, and I frequently hear the question, “what curriculum do you use to build vocabulary?”
Honestly? The answer is none.
Just as with other language arts, we have not used any specific curriculum on a regular basis, instead choosing to integrate subjects, such as vocabulary, into our other studies in a more natural way.
So how does that work? And what can you do to enrich your child’s vocabulary more naturally? Here are 3 things you can do to build vocabulary.
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Build vocabulary by increasing the richness of your own vocabulary.
Children learn vocabulary in many ways, but the number one way they learn is by conversing with you. Make it a habit to use strong verbs, descriptive adjectives, and distinctive nouns. Learn new words yourself and then use them when speaking to and around your kids. Don’t dumb down your speech, even to your youngest of children. I’ve had one of those “new word of the day” calendars for years. When Ben was little, I would use it to learn new words. Now we both enjoy discovering new words together and trying to outdo each other using them. In much the same way, look for new words as you teach history, geography, and science and add those words into your conversations with your kids, working them into a familiar context. Contextual clues are the best teacher of vocabulary in both the written and spoken word.
Build vocabulary by reading aloud to your kids.
Most of our daily conversation is limited to about 3000 words, but the majority of adults have more than 20,000 words in their word bank. Why the huge difference? The written word. When you read aloud to your children, you are exposing them to language they might not otherwise ever hear. I am convinced that the word, “peril” was added to Ben’s vocabulary because of our frequent reading together. And just in case you were wondering — no, your kids are never too old for you to read aloud to them. Rather than have your high school student read all of the science text for himself, read parts of it aloud to all of your kids so everyone can benefit. Be sure to read aloud from different genres and subjects for maximum affect.
Build vocabulary by encouraging your kids to read every day.
Ben has had a minimum number of minutes to read every day, since he began reading. In the early years, it was a mere 15 minutes, increasing steadily until today. He now reads (most days) for about 2 hours. When children read a lot, as they are exposed to new vocabulary, they will begin to figure out the meaning of words in context, and you’ll find they use their new vocabulary every chance they get. Again, learning vocabulary in context is most important. Repetition is also important. Most authors have a vocabulary style that ensures the reader will be exposed to new words repeatedly.
I’m not saying that you should never use curriculum to build vocabulary. I’m a fan of a couple of different publishers — Wordly Wise and English from the Roots Up among them. We have used these books in similar ways as the new word-of-the-day calendars. Just understand that while your kids can likely memorize and regurgitate the meanings of many words using curriculum, these are not the methods that will build strong vocabulary into their everyday language in the same way that reading and conversation will.
And isn’t that one of the major points of learning new vocabulary?
