>> vocabulary development: how parents can help

(Helpful Web sites and books are listed below)
BY TOM McMAHON

Parents should never underestimate the importance of vocabulary development during the childhood and teen years. A rich vocabulary is the cornerstone of communication — reading, writing, speaking and listening — and critical to success in school and on college entrance exams. Children are a sponge for new vocabulary. Beginning with an average vocabulary of 200 words at age 2 — and typically learning 5 new words a day — a 6-year-old will have acquired a 10,000 word vocabulary (the range is from 5,000 to 20,000 words). It’s estimated that over 100,000 different words are in the books and other reading materials used by students through their school years.
Here are 7 easy ideas to create a rich linguistic environment for your children: 1) Make a weekly vocabulary list on 3-by-5 cards that includes definitions and sentence use. For suggestions of appropriate words, ask your child’s teacher. 2) Rehearse the words frequently. 3) Make the association between the spoken and written word. 4) Select a category of words to learn, one that your child has an interest in. 5) Teach high frequency (or basic) words. 6) Teach root words, which will help your child figure out the meaning of many other words (for fun root puzzles, go to www.vocabulary.com/VUrootmatrix.html). 7) Encourage daily reading.

PREVIEW VOCABULARY WORDS IN BOOKS
Before I give my children books to read, I look for words that they may stumble on. I go over these words with them before they begin the book. If I don’t have a chance to preview words in a book, I have taught my children to stick a Post-it Note next to words they don’t know. After their reading time, we will go over these words together. I also keep a list of these words so we can go review them in a few days. -- V.S., Bay City, Mich.

CLOSED-CAPTIONING MAY IMPROVE READING
My husband is hearing impaired, so we always had the closed-captioning feature on when we watched television. My daughter was raised seeing the words that she was hearing on television. She is now 8-years-old and reads at a seventh grade level. I can’t prove the correlation between my daughter’s reading skill and the closed-captioning, but it obviously can’t hurt either. -- Basha H., Lafayette, Calif.

RECOMMENDED VOCABULARY WEB SITES
www.vocabulary.com/VUrootmatrix.html
My favorite site for vocabulary. Fun learning games, exercises and
root-specific puzzles.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonplans/index.asp
Select a grade, then choose “vocabulary” under Language Arts.
Lots of age appropriate lesson plans.

http://www.readingrockets.org/lp.php?SSID=2
Great tips to help your child become a good reader

http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/promising/tips/vocab.html
Important information about vocabulary

http://www.theteacherscorner.net/reading/vocabulary/
Printable vocabulary worksheets, games, and more

http://www.ucc.vt.edu/stdysk/vocabula.html
Some facts, statistics and helpful suggestions to learn vocabulary

http://www.aft.org/american_educator/spring2001/vocab.html
Detailed information about vocabulary and how to teach it

http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/res/frequent.html
How to teach high frequency words

Highly recommended books by Edward B. Fry:
“The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists”
“1,000 Instant Words”
“The Vocabulary Teacher’s Book of Lists” (available in April, 2004)