Vocabulary development is critical to enhancing your child’s reading and writing abilities. It helps them understand new concepts and clearly and concisely express their ideas in new and interesting ways that stimulate a love for learning.  While you might be tempted to focus on simple spelling and definition, it’s important to help your child understand words in context, so they can use them appropriately and effectively.

If your child is struggling with reading, teaching him or her new words is an excellent way to help them grow as a reader.  Not only does this improve reading comprehension skills, but over time, this process increases the likelihood they will develop an impressive group of words they can utilize to write and speak more articulately as well.

As with many new skills, I recommend turning vocabulary development into a game. Learning new words should be fun! There are over one million words in the English language, so pepper into your lessons words that are unfamiliar as well as ones that are useful in regular daily life.

Here is how you can create a vocabulary development system for your child…

When your child is young, start with conversational words, words they encounter on a daily basis such as cup, chair, dog, etc.  As they grow and become comfortable with these basic words, you can move into more academic words that they will utilize throughout their school curriculum (words such as analyze, summarize, compare).

When your child enters high school, helping them develop subject-specific vocabulary can support their development in classes they find particularly difficult.

Over the course of your child’s vocabulary development, read with them daily. Once a week, take out 2-3 words to ‘play with.’  Find the definition, synonyms and antonyms, identify the parts of speech and homonyms. Let your child play detective, investigate and come to their own conclusion about the words you’re examining.

There are lots of savvy and entertaining resources available that support strong vocabulary development. For example, Merriam Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary provides simple definitions that are easier to understand than a traditional dictionary.

This free, printable Vocabulary Question Cube is part lesson, part game, and you can involve all your children. The cube is rolled to one child, who has to perform the action on the upward facing side of the cube (just like a die). The action (such as define, use in a sentence or give a synonym) is performed for a vocabulary word selected by the person who rolled the cube to them. If the catcher answers correctly, they roll the cube to another person and select a new word. If the catcher answer incorrectly, he/she is out of the game, and the person who first rolled the cube to them sends it to another player.

If it’s just you and your child, you can modify the game so that there is no exchange of the cube. Instead, your child will draw a vocab word out of a hat and then roll the cube like a die on the table to see what action they must perform.

If you’re feeling even craftier, you can create a checkerboard out of paper for a round or two of Vocabulary Checkers. Write a vocabulary word in each square. As your child plays the game, they will need to provide the correct definition of the word in the square. They could also make up a sentence using the word. If they answer correctly, they get to claim that square. (If you are their opponent, have your child answer for you, but reverse the penalty. So, they need to get the definition correctly to prevent you from taking their square.)

If your family loves board games, I recommend the Junior Edition of Apples to Apples. Players are given 5 red apple cards, each with a noun on it. Every round, one person—the “Judge” for that round—takes a turn playing a green apple card with an adjective on it. The rest of the players select the red apple card from their hand that they think is best described by the adjective on the green apple card. The Judge looks at all the red apple cards and then decides which one he or she thinks best matches the adjective for that round.

You can modify this game depending on your child’s needs and learning level. For example, you can teach difficult cards ahead of time, and use the game as a low stress quiz. Or let your child create their own cards, either from a school assignment, a specific theme, or a story you are currently reading together. This step reinforces the work you’ve already been doing and helps them commit the words to memory through a new medium, physically writing them down.

Pictionary is another good option where you can involve other family members. Have your children draw out vocabulary words for a family member or team to guess. If you want to make it more competitive, add a time limit. Or play a Charades variation to add in movement and physicality. Hot Seat, similar to Taboo, can help your child with their context clues, as one player tries to get the other to guess the vocabulary word correctly without saying the actual word. Finally, I also recommend a good, old fashioned Word Scramble when you want to concentrate on spelling skills.

If your child loves sports or needs lots of movement, you can even fold vocabulary development into Trashcan Basketball. If they answer a vocabulary question correctly, they earn one point on the scoreboard. With each correct answer, they also take a bonus shot at the trash can with a Nerf ball (or even a paper ball) for an additional point. Break the family into teams if you want to make it more competitive, but skip the trash talk. 😉

Which of these games are you most excited to try out with your family? What questions do you still have about practicing vocabulary with your child? Let me know in the comments below.