How Do I Build My Child’s Reading Vocabulary?

reading_vocabularySharing new vocabulary with your child doesn’t have to take a long time or turn into a lot of work. Read with your child often and as you read together, choose which words to talk about carefully. The best words to choose are ones that are common among adult speakers. When introducing new words to your child, please follow the following helpful hints;

1. Provide a simple, kid-friendly definition for the new word, not one that is from the dictionary. For example, Gigantic means something is really, really big.”

2. Provide a simple, kid-friendly example that makes sense within their daily life. “Remember that really big watermelon at the store that we saw; it was gigantic.”

3. Encourage your child to develop their own example. “What gigantic thing can you think of? Can you think of anything really, really big?”

4. Keep your new words active within your house.

Take the time to share new words and build your child’s vocabulary. You’ll be immensely glad you did!