Vocabulary support

As lockdown continues, you may be worried about the impact on your child’s learning and educational progress. But please don’t be concerned – the most important thing for your child right now is to feel safe, and develop their emotional understanding. There are plenty of resources on this site to help you achieve this goal.

However, if you would like some learning activities, and feel that your child is ready for this or would benefit from some structure, then word learning is the best thing you could be doing right now! Vocabulary (words) is a vital part of any learning, and something that you can be working on throughout the week, with no need for sitting down and going through a worksheet (although we have those if your child loves them!)

On this page, you will find games, activities and ideas to develop topic vocabulary with your child. These should be used with the home learning menus sent out by your child’s class. 

When learning words, there are a few basics to be covered:

• Hearing the word: A word needs to be heard about 20 times in a short period of time to be added to your internal dictionary. When learning words, try and choose one or two per activity, so you can repeat them lots and lots!

How the word sounds 

• How many syllables / beats in the word?

• What sound does it start with?

• What does it rhyme with?

• What other words does it remind you of?

What the word means

• A dictionary definition that your child can understand

• When and where you might hear the word

• Finding some objects or pictures that show what the word means

What kind of word is it / How to use it in a sentence

• Is it a doing word? A naming word? A describing word?

• Can you use it in different sentences? Who can come up with the most?!

• Can you find it in a book, or see it written down, or hear it when an adult says it?