Tips for Improving Your Child's Vocabulary and Spelling

Throughout your child's academic experience, vocabulary and spelling will be a critical aspect. During elementary school, your child may have to compile vocabulary lists from assigned books or be asked to write sentences using assigned vocabulary words. Your child will probably have to take spelling tests. As your child progresses through middle school and onto high school, vocabulary and spelling becomes important when he or she has writing assignments. Here are ways to improve your child's vocabulary and spelling.

Increasing Your Child's Vocabulary

Here are tips from the Learning Resource Center, www.learningresourcecenter.net:

1. Ask 'Do you know what this means' when your child reads an unfamiliar word.
2. Talk to your child about many different things using new words.
3. Take your child to different places, then talk about what you see.
4. Explain everyday activities using the special vocabulary specifically associated with such activities.
5. Play games involving vocabulary, such as Scrabble, Boggle, Charades, and Crosswords. Ignore the rules on the game's box - keep a dictionary on hand for looking up new words before and during play.
6. Play word games everywhere, including naming and rhyming games.

Improving Your Child's Spelling

Often, students look at spelling as a tedious subject, which involves rewriting a single word numerous times or having to struggle to come up with sentences to suit a word. Spelling doesn't have to be uninteresting.

Here are activities from Child Development Institute, www.childdevelopmentinfo.com:

1. Talk with your child often. Good spellers need good verbal skills.
2. Let your child write stories about favorite subjects.
3. Help your child write letters to relatives or friends.
4. Help your child trace the words in a book or on a paper.
5. Use finger paints to write out words.
6. Play with magnetic letters on your refrigerator or another magnetic surface.