Increasing your Children's Vocabulary

Keep these statistics in mind: when a child reads independently (outside of school) for even 14.2 minutes per day, an average child is exposed to 1, 146,000 words per year!! If a child reads 65 minutes a day, this child is exposed to 4, 358,000 words per year. But if your child is only reading .7 minutes per day or about 45 minutes per week, they are only exposed to 21,000 words per year. This adds up to an incredible amount of vocabulary and knowledge that cannot be gained in any other way! Reading Children’s books is a great way to increase vocabulary exposure!! Children’s books contain 30.9 rare words per 1000! So you are constantly increasing your child’s vocabulary by reading children’s books! If you want your kids to get SMARTER—reading is the answer!

Take them to the library so they can check out books by these wonderful authors! Ask your child’s teacher for the list of authors! When your child reads for fun, reward them with MORE BOOKS, or more time to read, or time to read with you. Please do not give your child any money, stickers, prizes, candy, etc. for reading. Rather, ask your child: “What did you learn today? What are you interested in learning more about? Can you tell me more about _____?” Most of all, have FUN! There is so much out there to learn!!

Emily Swan Ph.D.