Helping your Child Expand their Vocabulary

Kylie Coker

Oral Language - Helping your Child Expand their Vocabulary

Want to help your child with their reading and writing? An easy way to do this is simply by talking to them! Having conversations with your child helps to expand their vocabulary, broaden their background knowledge and creates a natural curiosity about things around them. Good readers and writers have a diverse vocabulary. Oral language is developed through the introduction and use of vocabulary that children do not already know or use frequently. 

Some ways that you can help grow your child’s vocabulary through talk:

• encourage your child to ask questions when they are unclear about what a word means and explain what unfamiliar words mean.
• get into the habit of using a varied vocabulary when referring to familiar objects (this dog is big, but this giraffe is humungous. I feel hot today but I can see that you are positively boiling!)
• Play "I Spy" with your child using words that describe an object's position. ("I spy something on the carpet, in front of the couch, next to the dog.") Expand this activity by playing "Simon Says" using directional words. ("Simon says put your hand above your head.")
• Ask your child about their day. How did they feel and why? (apprehensive, exuberant, flummoxed, jubilant, optimistic).
• Restate what your child said - when your child says something, you can restate what they said using more sophisticated vocabulary. For example: Your child says, “I am very, very hungry.” You respond with, “When you are very, very hungry, that means you are famished or starving”.

Happy talking!

Kylie Coker

Learning Specialist English