Across the nation, American students are falling behind the rest of the world in reading comprehension, math and science. The importance of engaging your child, regardless of age, cannot be overstated.
Encouraging children to read takes reading from being a basic skill to a learned behavior and an intellectual habit. The reality is that the more children read, the more they’ll enjoy it, and the better readers they’re likely to become. Thus, growing a child’s vocabulary is one way to engender this development.
Read to your child. It essential that parents read with and to their children. One can never begin too early or read too much. Language development grows between the ages of birth to 3 years of age. This is when children begin to use words to express their thoughts and feelings. In fact, the size of a child’s vocabulary at age 3 is related to later reading skills. When they are old enough, take turns reading pages, chapters or major sections of a book, making it a routine.
Talk to your child. Talking with your toddler helps her expand her vocabulary and helps improve sentence structures. Talk as you: ride in the car, do errands together, make a meal, take a walk. Research shows that talking with children during everyday routines increases their vocabularies. Children can understand vocabulary before they can verbalize it. When you have a baby, your communication with him or her might include simply describing what you are doing.
Use Post-it Notes and Sharpies. Take the time to write a new word. For toddlers, try sticking notes to the appropriate objects. For example, write “mirror” on a mirror, or “doll” on a doll. In addition, use the 300 or so Sight Words (the most frequently used words in the English language) whenever you can and write them on Post-it notes as well. Whenever reading a book, highlight the words that you have already used and also reward children when they repeat a word. This will help to embed new words in familiar contexts. By purposefully introducing new words, you can increase your child’s active speaking repertoire. For example, in the very familiar setting of your kitchen, you can whisk eggs, use a serving spoon, and test food temperature with a thermometer.
Make up rhymes with your child. This helps her develop phonemic awareness — the ability to hear and identify the different sounds that make up spoken words. Whether it be in the mall, on the playground, or in the bathtub, it is important to engage your child or infant in conversation. Even if children can’t talk back, speaking to them, especially in rhyme or song, will enhance their vocabulary and ability to learn.
Talk frequently with your children. The more you talk to your child, the faster his or her vocabulary will grow. The larger a vocabulary a child has when he or she enters school, the more able the child will be to understand what is being read and said during class.
Assisting your child in developing a rich and vast vocabulary encourages academic success and underscores the importance of education. These are things that all parents can and should do.
–torrance stephens
