Helping Your Child Learn New Vocabulary
Research indicates that if we want students to succeed in the academic context, on important assessments and high-stakes exams, as well as their future careers, we must help them develop their vocabulary. The reason for that is this: our understanding of new information is directly linked to our understanding of the vocabulary used to communicate that new information.
For students, increasing their vocabulary is one key to success in mastering a language; the more words we know, the more words we understand, and the more words we can use in our writing to make it more impactful and effective. However, learning now vocabulary is sometimes viewed as a tedious or elusive process. Sometimes parents are not sure how to guide their children, especially as the way we approach vocabulary study study may vastly differ from the way parents studied it when they were in school.
Don’t worry, Reach Out is here to help! Let’s explore vocabulary acquisition (the process of memorizing and applying new vocabulary), and we’ll tell you how you can help your child build their vocabulary!
Talk About It!
It might seem overly simple, but when it comes to learning new words, one effective way young people do it is by talking with others. Children learn new words best when they are in context, such as in a conversation about a certain topic. They can infer a bit of new words’ meanings based on how they are used along with the other words they are already familiar with.
You have likely been interrupted by your child on many occasions when you use unfamiliar vocabulary and they curiously ask, “What does disaster mean?” You might have been referring to the state of their bedroom (as in it is a complete mess), and by taking a moment to explain the multiple meanings of disaster to them, you will not only have taught them a new word to describe a messy room, but also a failure or a naturally occurring phenomenon, such as a natural disaster.
Так, talking with your child is a great way to teach them new words!
Explore It!
Students generally understand that they can use a dictionary or a translator if they encounter a word they do not know, but sometimes even the definition of a word might leave them with more questions than answers.
In our experience, many students do not utilize one very important tool for learning and applying new vocabulary, and that tool is a thesaurus! If you notice your child overusing a word when speaking or in their writing, for example, “pretty”, “cute”, “good”, or “bad”, then take some time to show them how to use a website such as thesaurus.com to look those words up. When they search for the word such as “pretty” they will see that there are so many interesting and unique words to use instead! I
In our experience, students really enjoy using new vocabulary, and feel empowered to know there is a tool to help them make their words mightier.
Play!
Having fun while learning isn’t just something teachers do to make students happy, it’s actually been proven by neuroscience to be an effective way to help students learn more and more deeply. Research shows that when students are both stimulated and challenged, their brains release dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that stimulates the memory centers and promotes the release of acetylcholinem, which increases focused attention.
In our courses here at Reach Out, vocabulary instruction is an important part of each lesson. We also have courses launching this summer, Vocabulary Builder Levels 1-3, in which we will focus exclusively on helping your child expand their vocabulary knowledge with challenging new words. While the words chosen offer the challenge, tools like Quizlet and games such as Guess Who and Sentence Racer provide students with the chance to interact in a meaningful and engaging way.
How do we know these methods are effective? Because our decades of experience, and study of educational psychology and methodology have taught us how students learn best!
We would love to help your child learn new vocabulary as one of the ways he or she can become an effect more effective and successful reader, writer, and speaker. To learn more about how we can help, contact one of our Education Consultants today!
