English vocabulary is home to almost 250,000 words. A vocabulary is a set of well-known words within a person’s language. A person should also know the meaning of the word and how and where to use it. This takes a lot of learning and reading practice.
There are four common types of vocabulary of a person.
● Listening – able to recognize the words while listening.
● Speaking – able to use the words while speaking.
● Reading – able to recognize the words while reading.
● Writing – able to use words while writing.
English vocabulary is the most crucial part of the English language. It has more same-meaning words than any other language. It gets tough to learn these words because of this vast quantity.
English Vocabulary Growth:
We all know how vital it is to learn the English language. The sooner we start to learn it, the better it is. Learning English vocabulary is not a task of just a day. It takes quite a time. From childhood to adulthood, we keep listening to new words. This is how we learn it. But as we know, English is not our first language. This learning process can take more time. So we should give it the notice from the early levels of learning. Kids listen to words and try to learn them. They see and recall their pictures and actions. This is how they learn its meaning and how to use these words. This is known as the listening vocabulary. Simultaneously, they also learn to speak these words. Later, when they grow up. They get to the stage of reading and writing these words down.
By the time a child is in 5th grade, he has learned 1500 words. So if we focus on teaching them English words from the 1st grade, they can learn English vocabulary much faster. But it isn’t as easy as it seems. Learning a second language can be difficult, and it gets tougher when we try to teach it to kids.
6 Ways for kids to Learn English Vocabulary:
These are the six useful tips for kids to learn English vocabulary better and much faster:
Listening Activates:
The more kids listen to the words, the faster they learn them. Parents and Teachers can teach kids with the help of listening activities. These activities can include:
English Stories:
Stories for kids are the best way to teach kids words, language, and life lessons. Kids love to listen to stories. When they are getting bored or going to sleep, stories are their one-stop fun. Parents should read children’s stories in English. It will make them learn English vocabulary from a young age. With the help of these stories, they also learn the meaning of the words and how to use them.
Online Audio Stories:
Parents hardly get any free time. Nowadays, it is tough to take out time for story reading to the kids. For this reason, there are a lot of audio stories available online. Audio stories are just like the radio for adults. Kids find these stories very gripping as these also have the music and tunes at the back.
Poems and Songs:
Another delightful listening activity for kids is the poem. These rhymes and songs for kids have a lot of natural and common words. The kids find it very catchy because of the tunes these poems have. These melodies make the learning of these words very easy for the kids.
Singing poems is no less than art. It also needs some skills. When a teacher sings a verse, we usually see that kids learn it fast. On the other hand, kids take no interest when the parents sing that same poem. It is because of the minor details we ignore. Learn how to sing a poem that catches a kid’s attention. Click here
Visual activities:
The second type of exercise is visual learning. It means that kids learn by watching the objects move or actions performed. It includes watching cartoons and videos. It can also mean using graphics and other tools to teach kids.
These tasks are part of e-learning. ELE teaches the kids with the help of computer graphics and visuals. Visual activities are helpful as they appeal to kids’ two senses at a time. The kids learn through watching and also listening to English Vocabulary. It also counts in picture and coloring books as kids get to learn about many Nouns and what it does look like.
Conversations:
The next step is talking to kids in English. After holding learning activities, parents and teachers should speak to the kids about it. It can include quizzes and chit-chat about the story, poem, or picture. Teachers or parents should make sure that their questions must have English words. Kids should also use English words in their replies.
For example:
Who is the mother of the calf?
Cow
What was thirsty in this poem?
Crow
What did Ahmed’s father bring for his birthday?
A cake
This activity gives the kids the chance to practice what they learn. It also gives them confidence.
Reading
Reading is the most basic of all the educational skills. As the saying goes, Readers are leaders. Reading helps in mental growth as it gives the vast chances to explore new worlds.
As George R.R. Martin said:
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
Now think about the last time your kids read a book or any comic. If you can’t recall, then your kid may become one of many people who don’t have a habit of reading. They miss out on a lot. Reading has a lot of benefits for your kids; some of these are as follows:
● Mental Growth
● Improve knowledge
● More Vocabulary
● Better Memory
● Focus and concentration
● Observation
● Analyzing skills
● Perform well in studies
Every time the kids read a book, they learn many new words. They learn these words without even noticing them. So, the more they read in English, the more English vocabulary they will learn. Reading also helps the kids learn how to use a word in a sentence. They also get the chance to learn about writing style. There are many good storybooks for kids. Parents and teachers should also get the kids’ best books for schools. EAST Education provides course books that have all the vital parts of the language, such as:
1. Vocabulary
2. Comprehension
3. Grammar
4. Listening and speaking activities
5. Cover writing craft
Writing
Writing is one of the prime skills when it comes to communication. It is also the key role player in learning a language. Kids learn how to use words through writing activities. From early classes, kids learn to write down alphabets only. With the help of these books: When they learn this well. They start to write down essays and letters. Writing a good draft requires a good grasp of comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary. When kids try to write down an essay or story, they find themselves short of vocabulary. This leads them to find out and learn more words. Parents and teachers can get the help of these books. These books can help a kid learn how to write:
● Stories
● Essays and Letters
● Diary
● Poem
● Dialogue and Narration
● Autobiography and Interviews
● Research report
● Advertisement & News Story
These writing activities can boost the writing skills of the kids. This also adds up to the English vocabulary of the kids.
Games
Games are fun activities for the kids. They play various games to enjoy their free time. Most kids run away to play games when they get bored with their studies. Usually, kids waste a lot of their time playing around. This makes parents more anxious about their studies. But what if the kids learn a lot of new English words from these games? Words games are an easy trick to make the kids learn while playing. Playing word games is an informal way of teaching kids tons of new words. Children can enjoy playing games while naturally learning important language skills like spelling.
There are so many words games. Some include just the arrangements of letters. Others need the kids to write down words. These are called paper and pencil word games. Nowadays, there are a lot of these games also available on cell phones.
The list of games that can help your kids to learn more words:
● Scrabble
● Hangman
● Up words
With the help of these ways, it’s getting very easy to teach the kids English vocabulary. There is one more thing the Parents and teachers have to deal with, and that is pronunciation.
Learning Pronunciation:
The kids learn new English words and learn to write down these words fast. But what happens when they try to speak those words. Do you find them get hazy to speak it out loud? Kids find it tough to speak English fluently. This happens because English has a very different dialect from Urdu.
There are so many different features. There are a lot of silent sounds in the English language. It also has stress, rhythms, and vowel reductions. But, there is nothing to worry about because, with little a bit of focus, kids can ace English pronunciation and its accent. Researches show that phonics is one of the best solutions. Identifying the outset sound is an essential skill when it comes to the reading of a word. But the issue is that most kids find this difficult. Some easy ways are very helpful in solving this problem. Parents and Teachers can use these six steps to help the kids out:
1. Vocabulary through Stories.
2. The Conversation around English vocabulary.
3. Introduction of the beginning sound of the vocabulary words.
4. Showing off the letter of the sound introduced.
5. Rhyme for the letter shape and sound.
6. Workbook or Worksheet Activity.
To read about these methods in detail. Follow these practical activities that are very helpful for the kids as these help the kids in their studies and