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Challenge Your Child's Vocabulary

“All words are 
pegs to hang ideas on.”
                                     Henry Ward Beecher

Challenge your child to use new words in place of plain ordinary words.  Your child will spend the rest of their life reading, writing and speaking words.  Help them early in their life use more powerful words in place of happy, sad, bad, or other similar words.

Have fun with your child and challenge their vocabulary by playing a game at the same time.  The game is called ReWord or you can choose your own name for the game.  Think about a word you would like to have your child exchange for a stronger word and make that the word for the week.  Communicate the word of the week to the entire family.  The goal is to not use that word and exchange it for a stronger word.

Example:

Bad= awful, horrible, lousy

Happy=  delighted, joyful, glad

You should provide the family with four or five words that can be used in place of the word of the week.  This is a great chance to teach new words to your child.  Once the word and examples are communicated to the family there are several ways to proceed through the week.  

You should discover the best method of scoring or positively reinforcing the game for your family.  You can keep score on the refrigerator and tally any time someone uses a new word or you can buzz a family member when they use the word of the week.  But make sure and have fun with the new words you can choose.

This game will prompt your family to think of new words in place of ordinary vocabulary and have fun in the process.  A key to the success of this game is to make sure parents play with your child.  This is a great way to model strong vocabulary.

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