Lately dd has been asking me to define any word that she does not understand. So, no problem because the only words she does not understand are words in her books or words that I am speaking to her. The only thing that has been bugging me is that my voabulary is fairly limited...I read a lot, but I just know i only have a relatively small vocabulry. I feel like I am going to hinder dd's growing vocabulary because she is only learning words from me (or dh) and from her books. Her books are children's books so there are not many words she doesn't understand in them. She asks for one or two definitions per day and she really does understand everything we say (except for those couple of words). She uses almost the same language that dh and I use...she is just really into words these days and I want to encourage her in that interest.
I know this is kind of a weird question, and I am not really sure how to word it...I guess I just feel that she deserves and wants a challenge but I am not sure how to offer it to her. We do go to the library, but most of the books that interest her are kids books. Actually she loves our book about local birds...maybe I could find some other animal books and she could learn come animal vocab, although I was more thinkign in terms of everyday language.
hmm not too clear I know...sorry I'm tired!
There are books about origins of words that can be really fun for verbal kids. I'll see if I can find titles--never my strong suit!
But the best way I know to expand one's vocabulary is just to read and read some more. I think you're dong fine!
thanks...if you think of any titles that would be great! I wonder if there are childrens books, either for them to read or to be read to them, that have a higher reading level. Her interest level is still at a toddler level, for the most part, but her interest in words is probably a bit higher.
I often played word games with my verbal kids.
One we all enjoyed: we'd name a letter of the alphabet and then say every word we could think of that started with it. I started this when DS7 was about a year old and was obsessed with letter puzzles. I played the game by myself with whatever letter he was holding to keep me from dying of boredom, since he played those puzzles for HOURS every day. As he got older, he just started joining in.
The trick is to stretch yourself. Reach for hard words. Don't just say "jump" and "juggle" for the letter j, say "jovial" and "jocund." (Or whatever) Bonus points for words that sound funny and make your child laugh.
Don't feel like you have to know the meanings of all the words. Keep the dictionary handy and look stuff up. Great modeling!
In fact, just take the dictionary out and flip through it with her, reading new words. Dictionaries and encyclopedias are gold mines for GT kids! Especially the verbal ones!
As she gets older, you might try the last letter game (or maybe you could adapt it to make it easier for a toddler). You start with an "a" word like "apple." That ends in "e," so I'd say "esoteric," which ends in "c" so you'd say "colloquial," and so on. Es and Ys get hard fast, so use them sparingly unless you want to stick it to someone. Great for car trips!
You can try online vocab builders, such as
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games_vocab.htmand
free rice
Look under SAT Vocabulary.
or go to Amazon and buy 'vocab textbooks'
also - they have these great SAT prep books' with definitions of the difficult words in a margin at the bottom - classics.
I think a lot of the materials from 'Sparknotes' and other study aids would come in hand with these little ones, because they are simple and complicated at the same time. Bookstores around here have full bookshelfs of this stuff.
I think that this happened at our house, I have a terrific receptive vocab, but trained myself not to use 'big words' in High School, and kept along that track. Now I think that DS has missed that opportunity. He did learn the word 'Ambivalent' at age 3, and that come in very handy.
See if you can get your DH involved, because I think the best way for these kids to learn vocab, is to overhear it in use.
Smiles,
Grinity
If you're looking for good vocabulary in books, some of the older children's books (older books that is, not necessarily older children!) are excellent. I don't remember now how old your DD is, but pretty early on, DS enjoyed hearing Mrs. Piggle Wiggle stories, some Roald Dahl, and Edith Nesbit stories. At least by the time he was three I think (although somewhere between three and four there was a "gap" where he didn't want to listen to anything he couldn't read himself, but we got back to them as soon as he was a pretty good reader).
If she really likes animal stories, there are kids' books of James Herriot stories (I think just short excerpts rather than adaptations, but I'm not sure), and Bill Peet is another good animal-story author.
Ds has enjoyed this dictionary - lots of good comics but it is a regular full dictionary with 10,000 definitions, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Merriam-Webster-Garfield-Dictionary-Merriam-Webster/dp/0613238079
I agree that the most important thing is just to read a lot - and when your DD asks a question about words take them seriously and make it fun. We sometimes even take the opportunity to open up a dictionary (whether you actually know the definition or not). It gives the child a sense that the questions are important and that there's a standard way of finding out the answer.
Word games are really fun too. Our DS4.5 still loves a game that sort of evolved when he was around 2. It's a kind of call and response game that's often starts out rhyming words - time, rhyme, slime, and so on - and then sometimes morphs because of semantic relations - from slime to green, gooey, gum, chewy. Nobody quite knows what the rules are, but it's always obvious when someone makes a great move!
In short, though, it sounds like you're doing great!
BB
I love this Board!
I've played verbal games with the kids for several years starting at about 18months. DS8 still loves to play but its evolved into 20 questions or the as he calls it, the 'guessing game.' (person, place or thing, animal, vegetable or mineral, etc). We played these games on short trips, long trips, waiting at restaurants, doctors offices, etc. The games encompass not only vocab but math or spelling too. They love to spell words - each at their own level (DD5, DS8).
One that might assist with vocab is what we call the synonym game. Name something and they try to come up with all the synonyms for it. Take the object - "shoes" and then all kinds of things can be said - sandals, boots, sneakers, galoshes, etc. Be flexible. Have fun and enjoy this special time with your kids.
A children's dictionary could prove useful. If pressed for a definition, you could model for her (as someone else posted) and look it up to obtain the definition. If you know of similar words, introduce her to those.
Finally, a great show on PBS is WordGirl which introduces some nice vocabulary. We searched high and low for a Wordgirl halloween costume this year, to no avail. Next time, if DD is still into it, we'll make one, I guess.
HTH and keep up the interactions with your DD.
Again, I love this Board!!! So nice to hear stories of other parents interacting in similar fashion. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but I just don't get how parents can "plug in" their child to DVDs/Videos on long trips instead of enjoyng the time together for at least a portion of the trip.
I'll second the wordgirl show. Here's a link to some games:
Word Girl Games on PBSkids.org Also, pinky dinky doo is a kids show that introduces more vocab:
Pinky Dinky Doo on noggin.com There are games at that site too.
We just discovered Kriston's game on
Scrooge musical adaptation of the Christmas Carol. They called it "The Minister's Cat" and it is played by going from person to person, starting with the letter a. 1st person: The minister's cat is an angry cat. 2nd: The minister's cat is an awful cat. 3rd: The minister's cat is alley cat. Then if you can't think of one, that person is out and you move to the next letter. (In our version, we just move on to the next letter without anyone being "out.") Here's a better description:
The Minister's Cat Parlour Game I think if you just keep reading, you'll get more variety in vocabulary. Jan Brett's books for kids sometimes have more interesting vocab. The older versions of fairy tales have very colorful vocab. Good luck!
One of the best websites I have found listing books for kids 2-5 is called "brightly beaming resources" (
http://www.letteroftheweek.com/) - for younger kids that are still learning letter sounds they have some great vocabulary examples - even if your child is beyond the "sound of the week" curricula -the books they recommend are still great.
I game that my son loves to play especially in the car is what we call the blends game. I give him a blended constanant sound such as "st". One point for using it at the beginning of a word like "start", one point for using it at the end of a word like "fast" and 5 points for using it in the center like "cluster". When you get stuck you pick a new sound. Like BBDad, I'm not really sure how this game got started or what the rules are but he loves it! We also play antonyms and synonyms. Listening to us play this game in the car has even taught my littles DS2 and DS3 many new words.
We also bought a Websters first elementary dictionary and taught DS6 how to use it so that he can look up words on his own. He delights in giving us the "official" definition of words.
These games are great; and I love the idea of a 'wordgirl' costume for Halloween! Lol!
Kind of ot, but similar to the word games above, we do a rhyming words thing. Starting with a simple word we go around the car, and kids call out a word which rhymes until we run out of ideas and then start all over again. Of course it can get really silly.
I game that my son loves to play especially in the car is what we call the blends game. I give him a blended constanant sound such as "st". One point for using it at the beginning of a word like "start", one point for using it at the end of a word like "fast" and 5 points for using it in the center like "cluster". When you get stuck you pick a new sound. Like BBDad, I'm not really sure how this game got started or what the rules are but he loves it! We also play antonyms and synonyms. Listening to us play this game in the car has even taught my littles DS2 and DS3 many new words.
Love it! Will try it out - the kids love new versions of word games. Thanks for sharing, Shari
Something I always like for little people is poetry--you could try some Jack Prelutsky or Michael Rosen, or there are nice collections like the Oxford Book of Verse for Children, or Robert Louis Stevenson's Child's Garden of Verses. Some nice picture books of a single poem are "Mr Ferlinghetti's Poem" (with gorgeous woodcuts by David Frampton) and "Crossing" (Philip Booth, with beautifully nostalgic artwork by Bagram Ibatoulline). (Edited to add: another one your nature-lover might like is "Butterfly Eyes" by Joyce Sidman--beautiful Beth Krommes artwork, and every poem a riddle!)
The Beatrix Potter books are lovely on so many levels--and the vocabulary is quite advanced in some of them. Kenneth Grahame's "Reluctant Dragon" is available in several picture book versions; try for an unabridged one--lots of wonderful words in this one!
Some other picture books with both very nice pictures and somewhat more complex vocabulary than some kids' books:
James Thurber, Many Moons
Tim Wynne-Jones, Zoom at Sea, Zoom Away, Zoom Upstream
Chris Wormell, George and the Dragon, Two Frogs, The Sea Monster
Jon Muth, The Three Questions, Zen Shorts
Barbara Reid, The Party, The Golden Goose
Jacqueline Briggs Martin, The Lamp, the Ice, and the Boat Called Fish
Quentin Blake, Mrs. Armitage books
Ogden Nash, The Tale of Custard the Dragon
Brian Wildsmith, Jungle Party, The Miller, the Boy, and the Donkey
Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, The Snail and the Whale, A Squash and a Squeeze, Charlie Cook's Favourite Book
Allan Ahlberg, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, Burglar Bill
[Edited to add: Donna Jo Napoli, Albert (for your birdlover!)]
Hope some of these will appeal to you and her--
peace
minnie
One,
How old is your dd? The Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events is a FABULOUS series for vocabulary. My dh read all 13 to my girls starting when my youngest was just five. She loved them but they are bit on the dark side. If you want something a little friendlier the Beatrix Potter books have wonderful words but unlike Snicket they don't build in the definitions.
Enjoy
My son has always loved learning new vocabulary. It was never enough just to be able to read a word. He always wanted to know the exact meaning of words that he hadn't heard before and their etymology. He loved for me to read books to him with a high level of vocabulary when he was preschool age. He particularly enjoyed National Geographic Magazine and would read the captions underneath the pictures and ask about any words he didn't know. As a preschooler he really liked Aesop's Fables and I think the vocabulary was one of the things he liked about it. At six it was Shakespeare. Once or twice when he was about four I was doing the reading in an article about dinosaurs, but he watched as I read and he corrected my pronunciation of dinosaur names. He had a Magic School Bus computer game about dinosaurs so he knew their names better than I did. He also liked to read the dictionary as a preschooler and surprise his dad by using interesting words. Once when he was about four, his dad said something to him and my son told him it was a double entendre because it had a double meaning. He loved words with more than one meaning because he loved making puns and jokes, only kids his age didn't get them. He found word games on the computer and he just had a lot of fun with words. He didn't find out until he turned five and started kindergarten that he couldn't actually use the wonderful vocabulary he had learned because people where we live thought there had to be something wrong with a little kid who talked more like an adult and used vocabulary that they didn't know. Five year olds were supposed to enjoy coloring in the lines and my son didn't. The Kindergarten teacher actually wanted to hold him back a year because he wouldn't color in the lines and she thought he didn't really need to learn anything the next year because he was so far ahead in everything else. The kindergarten teacher even acted like I did something wrong by letting him learn to read and learn words that he wasn't supposed to know and said kids would think he was different. It was obvious she thought different was bad. I didn't know at that time about the bullying problem so she might have thought he would be a target for bullies if he didn't learn to act like the average kid.
But I told my son that I didn't want him to dumb down just to please other people. I told him I always admired people who were very articulate because I am not, no matter how many books I read or how many vocabulary games I played. I told him it was the thing that I thought was most attractive about his dad when I first met him. His dad is very articulate and his dad's mother came from a family of lawyers and judges. I told him he would just have to ignore those people who think all kids of a certain age have to be the same. It is good to be different. I am happy that he is different. His differences are what make him so much fun.
excellent! Thank you all so much! I love all of the word games you have suggested, and the list of books is wonderful (thank you minnie!). dd is just 2, so I would hesitate to read the Lemony Snicket books, but I completely forgot about Beatrix Potter and I think she would love those!
Thanks again!
Just came across another book I think you'd love, o.i.e.--"The Tale of the Trinosaur," by Charles Causley--it's brilliant! Funny, charming, and lots o' big words!
peace
minnie
Hello One,
I am pretty sure this book lists childrens books that have good vocabulary. I am not positive so you may want to try to get it out of a library as opposed to buying it.
�Reading Aloud To Children: The Evidence"
lan