Looking to boost your child’s vocabulary? Here are 15 ideas to get you started!

1. Get your child reading everyday.
   If you have a school-aged child they should be reading everyday. Whether your child is 5 and in reception or 18 and about to head off to university, there should be a dedicated time each day where your child reads.

2. Moreover, get your child reading complex texts.
   Of course reading should be pleasurable for children, but children should also be encouraged to read more complex texts in order to expand their vocabulary and aid their comprehension. Classic stories, poetry and non-fiction texts are all great places to start.

3. Encourage your child to highlight and define any words that they do not understand.
   So often I see students in my classes trying to avoid admitting they do not know what words mean. This embarrassment is a disaster for expanding a child’s vocabulary! Instead, encourage your child to tell you when they do not know what words mean, look the unknown words up in dictionaries and write them down in a vocabulary book that can be referred to at a later stage.

4. Name the constituent parts of objects for your child.
   For example, on your next family outing you might find yourself saying, ‘look at the castle.’ However, it would be better to say, ‘look at the crenellations on top of the turret.’ After all, children don’t know what things are if they are never told what things are!

5. Be highly specific when describing events, feelings and objects.
   When speaking to your child, resist the temptation to dumb your language down. After all, they are learning from you! So, if the notebook on the kitchen table has an ‘iridescent’ cover - as opposed to a ‘shiny’ cover - make sure to say so.

6. Make conversation with your child.
   The more children are exposed to language, the more language they will pick up. This is also true of babies and toddlers - it’s never to early to start chatting with your kids!

7. Use complex language and explain it to your child.
   This is a classic strategy used by teachers the world over. If I want my students to know a complex word I will use it in a sentence and then briefly explain it. This is as easy as saying something along the lines of, ‘The caterpillar has undergone metamorphosis - it has changed - into a butterfly.'

8. Learn synonyms together.
   Every week pick a bog-standard word - such as ‘happy’ - and look up all the synonyms of it together. Then make a conscious effort to use the synonyms when speaking instead of reverting to using ‘happy’ (or whatever it was you decided to look up).

9. Help your child to identify root words, prefixes and suffixes.
   This really helps your child to have a good guess at what unfamiliar words mean when they come across them for the first time. For example, if a child knows that ‘un’ means ‘not’ it’s a lot easier for them to work out what ‘uninteresting’ or ‘unfit’ might mean.

10. Play word games.
    Boggle, Scrabble, Bananagrams, Hangman… word games are not just fun, they also force your child to think of and recall the complex words that they know.

11. Model learning new words to your child.
    Children sometimes (incorrectly) assume that children need to learn things and adults don’t. Obviously, this couldn’t be further from the truth - no one knows everything! So, if you want your child to expand their vocabulary, why not show them how it’s done?

12. Write stories together.
    Pick a theme or topic, look up some words and write! And then refine the writing in order to improve upon it!

13. Praise your child.
    Children yearn to be noticed. And noticing children when they do something right or make an effort is a sure-fire way to boost their self-esteem and make them feel seen. So, when your child uses a new word, point it out and praise their behaviour. Hopefully this will spur them into repeating their efforts in the near future.

14. Ensure your child is repeatedly exposed to any new words they come across.
    In order to transfer the new, complex words into long-term memory a child needs to hear them repeatedly. Therefore, they need to read them again or they need to hear them in conversation regularly.

15. Little and often is key.
    Don’t dump too much on your child - it will only overwhelm them! They don’t need to learn everything all at once, they need to learn things over time. To that end, a short daily practice is better than a huge weekly practice. Little and often is key!

I hope that helps! Do let me know of any strategies you use!

Rachel xxx