vocabulary lessons?

[ikesmom]

Curious to see if you do vocabulary lessons and what you use? I listened to a group of kids (mixed ages)
yesterday and heard some of them using larger words like;

evidently
accompany
fluctuate


I don't know if they do vocabulary lessons . They might just pick it up from reading , conversation, ect.

We don't use anything . I remember when I was in school we had a list every week to look up in the dictionary.

[LilyGrace]

We don't formally use anything. It either comes up while we're reading or doing science. Last unit we came across the word "berths" which helped to understand the word used in a new context this week (Treasure Island, where the captain talks about how he'd 'give up 'is berth, he would'.)

[TEAK's Mom]

I find that doing a lot of reading really takes care of it. My almost seven year old knows how to use a dictionary and the internet and can look things up herself if she is so inclined. Sometimes she does, but usually she figures words out by context.

I also have a very strict policy: I never, ever, say, "go look it up!" As a child, I hated that response; it took me completely out of the moment. Instead, if someone asks me what a word means, I tell them and they move on remembering the word instead of rolling their eyes.

[theretohere]

Another vote for reading.

[AngelBee]

Just done by read outlouds.

[zech13_9_goforgold]

I read by context and was also a poor speller. But, I read a ton. And, I agree that you shouldn't tell kids to look up the meaning of words. After a couple times of being told that, I stopped asking, but also stopped learning. For me, I learned spelling by typing stuff on the computer a lot. Everytime it popped up to tell me I was wrong, I had to look at the word and see what I did wrong. I had vocab in school and hated it, but I'm not sure if I would have learned them otherwise.

[Lillian J]

My guess is that their use of the words is from reading and conversation. I really don't think that much is learned from vocabulary lessons. My son got a near perfect score on the verbal part of the SAT, but he'd never had a vocabulary lesson in his life - it was all from reading and conversation. Lillian

[Linda on the move]

nope, just reading and listening to books on CD

both my kids have huge vocabularies for their ages

[PreggieUBA2C]

When I'm reading to my children and I come across a word that I think is new to them, I either interject a synonym or two or stop to give a definition and examples of the word used in the same context as in the book, and then in whichever other contexts are relevant to its definition.

Both my dh and I read aloud to our boys, and we have a large range of material. I deliberately choose books that will challenge their understandings, and in doing so, their vocabularies are increased as well; this is incidental to a pursuit of new knowledge though, never prescribed even informally.

Dh also reads academic texts aloud for our (his and my) enjoyment, so the boys hear those as well. They have very versatile vocabularies, but we're a sort of 'wordy' bunch, so if a large vocabulary isn't innate, it becomes necessary to develop one to participate naturally within our family, and they certainly do so with enthusiasm.

I cannot imagine trying to teach words to small children without a specific and living context, such as a story or research project.

[tayndrewsmama]

Definitely through read alouds.