Homeschool Theater

By helping your young child expand his vocabulary, you will boost his reading and writing skills. He needs a good vocabulary to decode and comprehend the words and sentences he is reading, and will be better able to communicate his thoughts and ideas for writing and speaking.

1. Talk with your preschooler whenever the opportunity arises.
Engage her in conversation about anything: the food you are cooking, the latest antics of the family dog, what both of you like about her favorite TV program.

2. Name everything.
Tell your child the names of the cooking utensils you are using, the animals in his Noah’s Ark toy set as you play together or the flowers you are looking at in the plant nursery

3. Read aloud to your child as often as you can.
Read the book your child chooses, but when it is your turn to pick the next book make it one she has not seen yet. Keep a stash of several books that have a few advanced words, such as “process,” “acknowledge” or “fledgling.”

4. Tell stories to your children. Bedtime is the traditional time for storytelling. However, you can tell a story while waiting in line at the bank, driving in the car (see this video) or whenever you have some moments of time to fill. Put in a few words that you do not think your child knows yet, such as in number 3. Be free with your descriptive words!

5. Categorize.
When your child talks about the neighbor’s cat, say “a cat is an animal.” Other examples would be “a pear is a fruit” or “a motorcycle is a vehicle.”

6. Add descriptive words. If your little one says, “look at the cat,” say back to him, “I see the black, long-haired cat.” The more often you use descriptive words in your speech, the more likely your child will also.

7. Ask probing questions about new discoveries.When your child finds a treasure such as a pretty rock, ask him questions about it. When she creates a drawing or receives a new toy, ask her to show it to you and describe it. Ask questions such as, “What do you do with it?” or “How would you like to display this?” This encourages your child to think about his answers. This reinforces his language learning.

These simple tips are some of the ways you can help your preschooler gain a larger vocabulary which in turn will benefit her communication, reading and writing skills.

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The author, Michelle B., writes about education, homeschooling, literacy and gardening in the desert. See our reading suggestion in in our Amazon bookstore.

Tags: language, literacy, preschool, vocabulary

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Children, PreSchool, Reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.