7/29/2019 Rich Vocabulary

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7/29/2019 Rich Vocabulary

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A rich speaking vocabulary

Talk, talk, talk to him!

Read to your child every single day

Talk about what youre doing

Positive encouragement

Play word games

Words let us think, create ideas and reason. A poor vocabulary leads to a poor level of reasoning. A rich vocabulary, incontrast, leads to higher levels of reasoning and creativity and skill in communication skills that are highly valued inlater life. It all starts with a love of words. Although there are over 500,000 words in the English language, just 3,000make up the great majority of the words we use in everyday conversation. About 400 make up 65 per cent of the

words that a child is likely to come across in childrens books. e activities and games in the activity cards will helpdevelop their reading and speaking skills.Apart from the 3000 main words that make up our everyday vocabulary, thousands more come from them, usingprexes such as dis-, mis-, re-;and suxes such as -ed, and -ful. Once a child has grasped the meaning of these prexes and suxes, hes well on theway to unlocking nearly all the secrets of the languages vocabulary.

To learn to speak the basics of a language before starting school is a fantastic achievement. It is achieved largelythrough meaningful interaction between you and your child. Speak to him what is happening, when it is happening.e brain stores information in groups of ideas. So when you see a new subject a dog or a ower try to build onyour childs existing knowledge by talking about what you see. e more you link ideas together the more she willlearn. Later you can talk about what you saw and discuss it again.

Look for childrens stories lled with vivid language, and introduce your family to some of the classic literature fromquite an early age. But dont force this. Build on your childs interests.

Im going to make dinner now. Do you want to help me? Right, lets scrape some carrots. Here they are. And theseare potatoes. Talk about the dierent colours and the dierent textures. en as soon as she knows the dierence, askher to bring you some potatoes and carrots. You can also talk to her when shes dressing: Now Im dressing you.Remember this is your right leg, and this is your left. Which is your left leg? Which is your right?

If she says, I goed to grandmas, dont tell her that its wrong. Instead, try: You went to grandmas yesterday didntyou? And I went, too. Tomorrow well both go again. Nursery rhymes are easy to remember. e rhythm and rhymein age-old stories as well new stories such as Dr Seuss give children wonderful opportunities for acquiring newvocabulary.

As you drive around, play lots of word games and tell silly stories to each other. A good game is to take turns innding words that start with the same letter: My grandmas cat eats melons and meatballs.