Improve Your Kids' Vocabulary with Mrs. Wordsmith
I’ve written before about the importance of reading to your kids, and the numerous benefits it has. But I want to focus on the most obvious benefit - the simple fact that it sets up your kids to learn how to read more quickly. And I personally believe that the most significant contributor to this is the vocabulary they are exposed to. Because when kids are trying to sound out a word for the first time, you simply can’t ask for a bigger head start than intimate familiarity with the word’s meaning.
Every child learns at different paces and in different ways, but it seems to me like we never taught our 7-year-old son how to read. In his case, after a lifetime of being read to every night, it felt like it just clicked one day because of his familiarity with the words he was trying to read. Vocabulary is the key - otherwise you’re simply reading an alien language. Direct instruction has its own place and time, but I think all of our kids deserve a much more efficient head start. And quite simply that’s done by hearing and using more words.
If somebody gave me a magic wand to fix education, I would start with universal Pre-K starting at 2 years old that existed solely for books and play. I would read mounds of picture books to the kids the way that we do to our own children. And, quite frankly, I would make books, the arts, and play the bulk of the school day until roughly 5th grade for that matter. At that point, if the children successfully reach the 5th grade literate, motivated, and interested in learning - they can teach themselves absolutely anything they want to learn. The possibilities are endless.
But supposing I don’t find my magic wand, how else can we give all of our kids the invaluable head start of an extensive vocabulary and a love for reading? I deeply believe that learning through osmosis during a wide array of life experiences is by far the best way to acquire meaningful new vocabulary - which is another one of the reasons universal Pre-K is so important.
And books offer the opportunity to experience anything you can dream of in the comfort of your own home and on your parent’s lap. Kids learn so many new words while being read to. Kids hear and learn far more words from books than from the average vocabulary they’d hear during a normal day. And I will always consider reading to your kids the best recipe for academic success if there ever was one.
But, while I believe that indirect osmosis and real-life experiences are the most valuable ways to acquire new vocabulary, there is undoubtedly a place for direct instruction as well. And, contrary to what every English teacher with their spelling lists and vocabulary lists to memorize would have you believe - it doesn’t have to be mind-numbingly boring. In fact, it turns out learning new words can be remarkably fun.
We have this book in our kitchen called Storyteller’s Word a Day from Mrs. Wordsmith, and it’s just spectacular. It sits upright with spiral rings on top so you can flip the page over each day to the next word. Inside you’ll find a total of 180 vocabulary words - along with facts like their etymology, their usage percentage, and even a story starter.
But obviously the huge selling point here is the art. Because of the lead of Art Director Craig Kellman - the man behind the characters of Madagascar and Hotel Transylvania - the cartoon illustrations are hilarious, eye-catching, and, most importantly, memorable. The over-the-top comedy of the pictures does a remarkable job of burning the new words into the memory, and it legitimately makes vocabulary acquisition fun.
Everything about this book appeals to all of us very much. Most of all, I love how the entire thing is framed as a way to improve your storytelling, which is a great selling point to me. And the kids are very invested in the ritual of flipping the page over each day like they’re keeping a desktop calendar. I’m just relieved to know that Mrs. Wordsmith has a sequel to Storyteller’s Word a Day so we won’t be done anytime soon.
And I’m impressed with our son’s ability to retain the new words - words like impeccable, indulgent, and devious - particularly if we take a moment to talk about it or, better yet, use the story starter. Even I find myself visualizing the great pictures of some of these words when I hear them, and that’s certainly a big part of the secret.
Learning new vocabulary is about so much more than getting a good grade on the next spelling test in school, but unfortunately most kids don’t get the chance to see it that way. It’s possible to expose your kids to new words simply because of a love for words - and to open up new possibilities. Because the more words you know, the more stories you can read and the more stories you can tell.
Imagination has always been important to me, so as we’re homeschooling our son I deeply appreciate finding a vocabulary book that puts imagination and storytelling at the forefront of its mission. It’s by no means a chore. Vocabulary is a very major key to unlocking all of the magic that literacy can bring to you, and direct instruction has a place in that - but that direct instruction doesn’t have to deviate from the imagination and childhood wonder we’re all about.
I feel like our son had such a huge head start learning how to read because of the many years of osmosis, and now it’s paying great dividends as he stays up late reading every night - discovering new worlds and firing up his imagination. Now I think that throwing random big words his way each day is kind of like adding fuel to the fire. They just feed his creative world - opening up new possibilities as well as giving him the tools to tell his own story.
Have you ever seen Storyteller’s Word a Day? What’s your favorite way to build vocabulary with your kids or work on your storytelling together? Let us know in the comments!
