Tips on developing your child's vocabulary

Having a good vocabulary can help a child to better express themselves and communicate with others, so it’s no wonder that the Kumon English Programme encourages young learners to pick up and use new words!

As children progress through school, they will need to use a range of adjectives, verbs and nouns in order to achieve higher levels in their literacy. This makes expanding their vocabulary not only necessary for their academic careers, but also an essential life skill that they need to spend time developing.

Children learn a lot from the adults in their lives and there are many ways you can help your child learn new words. Here are some activities you can do with your child to inspire curiosity about words and help expand their vocabulary:

• Encourage your child to search for new words using a dictionary so that they can understand the meaning
• Take your child to a variety of places and discuss your surroundings, teaching them about new concepts and words that they can later use themselves
• Interact with your child while reading by asking them to describe the pictures they see and the meanings of words
• Play word games such as Scrabble or crossword puzzles, and encourage them to use the words they play in a sentence
• Let the words come alive by labelling household items using post-it notes to introduce young children to a range of words
• Introduce a new word of the day, and include it in conversations with your child
• Encourage them to read often and independently
• Study the Kumon English Programme!

Our English programme aims to foster a love of reading and learning in every child. Students range from age two to older, building skills such as reading and word recognition, expanding their vocabularies as they go. Students advance to later levels where they master reading comprehension and gain the ability to critique complex passages of text. Grammatical precision, memorisation skills and the ability to compose answers are gradually accumulated through different genres of text, familiarising students with both fiction and non-fiction, expanding their knowledge of the world and introducing them to new areas of interest. Speak to your local Kumon Instructor and find out what Kumon study can do for your family!