Sally Shaywitz writes in her book, Overcoming Dyslexia, A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level, “The size of a child’s vocabulary is one of the best predictors of his reading comprehension; children with the biggest vocabularies tend to be the strongest readers.” She goes on to say, “These words can be directly and explicitly taught as part of a vocabulary program or the words can be acquired implicitly, as most of them are, through everyday life experiences…”
This can be a fun skill to work on with a child. Digital books are good for readers who aren’t very fluent or who are not fluent at their comprehension level when reading. It is good to casually discuss the book with the student ahead of time, during, and after they are done listening to the story. A child may ask what certain words mean or about some concepts they didn’t understand. These are all good times to use a few of the new words they most likely picked up. The student will learn some independently just through listening.
Another is exploring a favorite subject with students. For example, if a student becomes particularly interested in dinosaurs a door has been opened for learning new words. Picture books, that are appropriate to the child’s comprehension level and/or don’t look like books for “little kids” can be bought or borrowed from the library. A parent can read the story to their child and discuss the pictures. Let the child lead the conversation. The student can then draw and/or write a story about one of the dinosaurs. They can talk about it with the parent and the parent can put the story up where it can be enjoyed by everyone. The child and parent can watch internet movies about dinosaurs and talk about them. When the student’s vocabulary has grown quite strong, the parent can enjoy taking the child to a nearby Dinosaur Museum where they can both work on using their new words.
Another way to add flavor to a child’s vocabulary and writing is working on sensory descriptions. A student and adult can sit down and write down as many sensory words as they can think of about a park, for example. The child may write down tree, green grass, leaves, and blue sky. The adult and child then go to the park and explore it. The child and parent can go to a tree and feel it and talk about it is brown or white, smooth or rough, how it might smell, etc. They can then go to the grass and talk about how it is made of individual blades that are green. Is the grass long or short, does it have a scent, and so on. This can be done for several things in the park. When the child and parent return home, they can write down as many details as they can remember about their time in the park. If desired, the student can be encouraged to write a story with the adult using some of the new descriptive words they learned.
An Important Note:
When discussing writing, students who are still beginners, should not be forced and should not be criticized for mistakes in their writing. The point is just to get down the information for the child’s sake. It is reasonable to have the child tell the story to an adult and have the adult write down the story. This task is merely to help reinforce the new words.