What are vocabulary skills?
Vocabulary skills are the ability to understand and use words. The more words your child knows, the better they can speak, listen, read, and write. Children learn new words by talking, reading, listening, and playing.
Having a wide vocabulary:
- Helps them explain their thoughts and feelings clearly
- Makes reading easier and more enjoyable
- Improves writing and storytelling
- Builds confidence when talking to other
How You Can Help Your Child at Home
Read, read and read again!
The more a child is read to by their parents and carers, the wider their vocabulary. A 5-year-old child who is never read to will have 4,662 words in their vocabulary. A child who is read to every day will have 296,660 words in their vocabulary by the time they are 5 years old.
Vocabulary Reading Questions:
What does this word tell us about the character?
Look at this sentence and choose a word/phrase that means the same as ___________________ .
The author describes the main character as ___________.
Think of another word that could have been used instead.
Why did the author use the word ___________ to describe ___________?
Vocabulary activities
Play word tennis
Explore words that have the same meaning. Give your child a word and then take it in turns to say a word that means the same. For example, happy: glad, joyful, cheerful, delighted. One person wins when the other runs out of words.
Or play the same game but this time give your child a noun and ask your child to name as many types of that noun as they can think of. For example, fruit: banana, apple, orange, grape, pear, plum.
Table Talk
When you’re eating together, use fun words to describe the food. You could say, “These sausages aren’t just nice – they’re tasty, they’re delicious, they’re spicy. Can you think of another word?”
Rephrase and Repeat
To learn the meaning of a new word, your child needs to hear that word between six and twelve times, in different ways. When you read with your child, choose one word and ask questions about it. For example:
- “Do you think the Big Bad Wolf is terrifying? Why do you think that?”
- “Can someone who is terrifying also be friendly sometimes? Can you think of a time?”
- “Is Little Red Riding Hood terrifying? Or is she friendly?”
- “Is being friendly the same as being kind?”