It’s all in the words.
Vocabulary.
This is our next step to reading. Many reading teachers would be doing this alongside most fluency work, so the position of step 3 or 4 is debatable. It goes along side together nicely with fluency.
Fluency, at its core, is when your child can, for the most part, read smoothly and attack a word with confidence. So they are not focusing so much on sounding the word out, instead of just not understanding what the word means. Doing both sounding out and figuring out what the word means simultaneously would make their head spin. Here’s how we avoid this. Separate vocabulary and fluency. To push fluency, you’d be focusing on a type of text that is slightly above their skill level to push their reading skill training past their ability. With vocabulary, we want our kids to be learning new words.
Why does this matter?
You began your journey with vocabulary when you had a baby, to begin with. You’ve been teaching them words, day in and day out. This has been helping their vocabulary skills from day one. When a child learns words, they stash the word away in their mind.
Let’s say your child loves cats, you read books about cats, you visit your local shelter to look at cats, and the zoo. Like only a kid obsession can take over, you let the cat phase bloom. So, when this cat-loving kid goes to kindergarten, they come across the letters C A T and stretch out the sounds, and BING, in their brain, a lightbulb goes off, a connection is made. They say to themselves, “ I know this word, I used to be, when I was a little kid of 3, obsessed with cats!” Just like that, they have that vocabulary word in their wheelhouse forever. This is really no different from what you’re doing when they are older. We want our kids to be using big words so they can get their message across when speaking but then fully understand what an author is trying to say in their writing. Many authors spend hourse picking the right words, to convey the greatest depths of their message. We want to make sure your reader is grasping at their fullsest the message.
How do I help?
If you have babies, speak to them, at times, like an adult. Tell them the names for ALL THE THINGS! This will help their reading in the future. If they are older. I’ll link a video on how to make a vocab fold-out. This is an EXCELLENT way to teach new words. Keep a Post-it in their book and have them write down when they come to a word they don’t know. To look up later. If they struggle, say, “What about the words that surround this tricky word, could give us a clue as to what this word means?” Model this, if you are reading out loud, stop when you don’t know what the word is. Reading the classics will make this happen.
Prefixes, root words, and suffixes are such a big game changer for children. When they get into the 2nd grade and beyond, giving them access to this other side of words helps them to truly understand what a word is. I’ll go into this with more depth at a later date.
How are you noticing and practicing vocabulary in your house?
