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I've nearly forgotten how to do this. Forgive me if this has been hashed recently.

I'm looking for a good vocabulary program for a gifted 7yo. I am just not seeing her pick up new vocabulary words through independent reading, and she has never gotten reading instruction at her level.

She has a spiky profile, so this may just be her average processing speed coming into play, but she can answer comprehension questions for 9th grade reading passages but cannot give me good definitions for pretty easy vocabulary words, i.e. "luxurious" was one the other day. Yet this does not seem to affect her comprehension. So, I thought I would actually take it upon myself to maybe explicitly teach her some vocabulary this summer.

Any ideas?

Check out Michael Clay Thompson's language arts curriculum. It covers grammar, writing, poetics, vocabulary and literature in separate books.

We've used Vocabulary from Classical Roots:

https://www.amazon.com/Vocabulary-Classical-Roots-Nancy-Flowers/dp/0838822525

Nominally, grade 4-11, with one softcover book per grade. The grade 4, 5, 6 books can reasonably be used as write-in workbooks. The grade 7-11 (A-E) books need separate paper. There are 16 lessons in each book (plus reviews every other lesson for levels A-E, so 24 lessons, really, for those levels), divided into about 5 mini-lessons/exercises, which will usually take about 5-10 minutes apiece to do at the elementary level, more when exercises involve applying vocabulary in written exercises (usually at the secondary level).

Although one can blow through these exercises very quickly, skills are more likely to stick through many short sessions, than fewer, longer sessions.

Thank you. Both reccomendations look great. We may homeschool this next year, if not, do some serious after schooling to get her some more instruction at all her asynchronous levels.. MCT is already on my wish list. And vocabulary roots is right up my alley.

What I'd really love is some kind of online, adaptive, video-like game. That would make my life easier.

I think what I really need to do is keep track of new vocabulary as we come across it, instill a thirst for learning new words, and actually train her (and myself) to craft meaningful definitions for words. For example, today irrigation came up, and her response was "I don't know, something to do with water." And, you know what? I wasn't much better. I think we both may be gestalt thinkers.

We are considering using membean this summer for vocab. DS has a very high Lexile, and can easily spell words if asked, but knowing what they mean...not always so much.

There are also some iPhone apps, of varying quality. Pearson has a series of graded free apps aligned with their literature curriculum, with mixed reviews. But then, free. Search App Store for "Pearson vocabulary".

ETA: Spelling City's app has vocabulary games. I've never used it, but know a lot of homeschoolers and public school teachers who use it as a supplement.

This is a clearinghouse of free educational games & apps:

http://powermylearning.org/learn/learning-games-activities

"actually train her (and myself) to craft meaningful definitions for words. "

yes! I see this with dd, who really knows stuff, but maybe is a bit shy or hesitant about 'guessing' or piecing a definition together from context, so I am also going to be trying to stretch her a bit in this direction, and build up her confidence.

I used wordly wise 3000 with my older son when I home schooled. It looks like you can get them from Walmart online now. I would go up to whatever reading level your child is and not by age/grade level.

My younger son is going to be in 7th grade next year but if I were to buy one for him I would start with books 11 and 12 with him. (But he tests really high and we are acellerating him to 9th grade English next year). If they were too hard I would buy the next two down.

ETA. It looks like on the wordly wise website you can look at the word lists for each book and decide which book is most appropriate. I was right that I wouldn't get book 7 to my son but much higher. One of his first words I remember him saying other than mom, dad and his brother's name was "actually" so he has always used words beyond his years.

Not a curriculum, Forvo is a crowd-sourced online pronunciation guide which may be helpful when expanding one's vocabulary.

Indigo,

Thanks for highlighting this, these days schools don't get kids to read aloud anymore in my experience and the main benefit that I got from that was in learning the correct pronunciation for words that I had never read out loud before from listening to classmates make exactly the mistakes I would have made.