Children Are Voracious Vocabulary Learners
Dear Parents,
You have probably noticed how much your child enjoys learning new words – the longer the better. We are always capturing the child’s imagination and expanding their vocabulary in kindergarten. We have high expectations:
- We play antonym, synonym, and homonym games.
- Children discuss authors, illustrators, publishers, end pages, and text features of books. They become collaborators and innovators on text as they create reproductions or adaptations of traditional literature. They build stamina and reading independence. The become independent writers and voracious readers.
- Children take turns being meteorologists or weather forecasters and talk about precipitation, fog, low visibility, cumulus clouds, etc.
- Through art, the children discuss textures, horizontal, vertical, zig zag lines, symmetry, detail, realism, blending, shading, perspective, and balance.
- We encourage perseverance, punctuality, and patience.
- Children often imagine and verbalize what they will be when they grow up – chefs, jazz musicians, ornithologists, veterinarians, paleontologists, entomologists…
- Our studies of animals, habitats, and nature add new concepts and descriptive words – hibernation, metamorphosis, mammals, carnivorous, constellations, migration, chrysalis, cocoon, etc.
- We use math every day as we talk about hexagons, pyramids, polygons, rhombus, trapezoid, horizontal and parallel lines.
- During literature discussions children learn to use words like synthesis, hypothesis, schema, infer(What do you infer from this picture?) and metacognition (thinking about our thinking).
- When we play with language we use musical terms like forté, crescendo, pianissimo.
- Our favorite new color words are maroon, amber and turquoise.
We encourage you to read and discuss quality literature with your child and to explore nonfiction books to expand their interest in the world around them and introduce wonderful new words. Consider listing new words on your refrigerator so you’ll remember to keep reinforcing their use at home.
You’ll be amazed – and perhaps flabbergasted at how your child’s vocabulary grows. He may notice a commotion going on, be reluctant to go to bed, or announce he has a voracious appetite!
We hope your child will become a collector of wonderful words and will develop a life-long love of language.
Thank you for your collaboration.
Warmly,
A Parents as Partners Letter from Parents as Partners: Family Connections That Multiply Our Teaching Effectiveness, by Nellie Edge © 2011. Permission granted to adapt and/or make copies with credits noted.
