Give Them Words

Give Them Words by Michelle Kemp

In South Africa, we are facing a crisis of literacy with many children and even adults being unable to read or write. We are all searching for strategies that can magically solve this issue as quickly as possible. However, one question we should be asking is “How can someone read without words?”

How many words do we use in a day, an hour? How many words are we exposing our children to?

Too often, children are only spoken to in short sentences or commands: dinner is ready, sit down, do your work. Yet then we expect them to write colourful essays on a variety of topics, when they reach primary school. 

We are not giving children the tools to succeed. 

There have been multiple research studies linking reading and speaking to children, specifically the variety of words used, with their later success in academic ability. Simply put, the more words a child hears, the more likely they are to succeed. 

In today’s world of text messaging and social media, we tend to limit our speech to the word count on our apps. We are losing words rapidly and our vocabulary is shrinking. Why use ten words when one word or even an emoji will do? 

What we fail to comprehend is that every word that a child is exposed to is building a connection within their brain. Every new word is teaching them to comprehend and seek meaning within a context. Every new word is opening up the possibility for future use. If small children can be exposed to an ever widening vocabulary then they will have the option for using those words, but even more important, they will have built the neural pathways that enable them to learn new words. The child cannot use these pathways if they are not created in early childhood. They cannot utilise a wider vocabulary in their written work, if they have not first heard the words used. We are not expecting every child to remember and use every word they hear, but rather use these words to develop their brain for language ability. It can be likened to a farmer sowing seeds: not all will grow into trees, but he will not have any trees at all if he just sits inside. 

Sadly even our books are suffering, with a trend to simpler language, indeed ‘dumbing it down’ for children because they may not understand every word. The only way to learn new words is to introduce them and then allow the child to try to ascertain their meaning. This should not be suddenly attempted during vocabulary lessons or spelling tests. We are doing a disservice to children by not exposing them to more complex words in everyday life. If a child’s mental word bank is overflowing, if they have made multiple neural connections for different words and understand how they connect together; then we are enabling their success. 

How can we expect children to read, write or even speak; if we do not give them the words to do so? So let us talk to our children. Let them hear us use new words without turning it into a vocabulary lesson, just showing that we find joy in utilising our robust language. Let them hear us speaking with the correct syntax and eloquence that we hope to one day see in their writing. Let us embrace language before we lose the beauty of words to some emoji or lol. Let us enable the young children in our care to receive the blessing of speech in all its infinite wisdom and beauty in order to strive to reach the powerful goal of literacy to its fullest potential. 

Let us give each child the gift of words. 

Activities to Promote Oral Language: (To be played as group games. Practice that only one person can answer at a time as well as waiting for a turn to speak)

Orientation Game: help the child learn the names of things and where they go. Ask “Where is the ….?” The child will tell you where the object is in the house. This can be simple or complex depending on the group. Use logical groupings such as brushes: paintbrush, hairbrush, nailbrush

News Time: During a family meal or other time that you are all sitting together, allow each person to go around and share some news, no matter how trivial. This could be done at dinner to discuss what each person did that day or at any other time to just share something interesting. Show interest in even the most mundane topics (“I have a dog”) and treat the News Times as a formal event: the person speaking stands and shares their news, everyone else is silent and listens attentively; the speaker asks for questions and then answers any questions politely. This can include an object to show everyone, such as an artwork made, but in general should not be as the focus must be on the spoken word. 

Question Game: Make a simple statement then ask questions

“A man went to the beach” 

Start with questions found in the statement: “Where did the man go?” and “Who went to the beach?”

Then become more abstract, “Why did he go to the beach? What did he do at the beach?”

There are not right or wrong answers, it is about building comprehension skills and enhancing creative writing skills; enabling the child to create a story from a simple idea or a research project from a single question.

Command Game: Give instructions that vary in complexity based on the ability of the child. Such as “Please bring me a red jug” to “Please hop on one foot to the bathroom and bring the pink hairbrush then put it in the blue basket in the lounge”. This can be led by older children once they have some practice.

Classification Extension Game: Select a category for the game, such as animals, cars, colours, hooved mammals or any other topic of interest. Then each person has a turn to name something in that category (cat, dog, mouse, elephant) (Ferrari, mini cooper, bakkie) (pink, lavender, cerise) (zebra, impala, waterbuck). This continues until no one can think of another example. If an object is incorrectly mentioned then gently say “I like dolls too, they are a type of toy, and maybe we can do types of toys next time we play this game”. 

An extension of this for older children and adults is the Categories Game: Select 5 or so categories such as car, animal, book, colour and famous person. Then have little slips of paper, each with one letter of the alphabet on. Draw a slip then everyone has to complete all categories with an example that starts with that letter (Mazda, Manatee, Marley and Me, Mauve and Marilyn Monroe) 

Another extension that can be for any age is the Association Game: Name one thing and then the next person has to say something that associates with that thing: Tea – Biscuit – Sugar – Sweets. Continue for as long as you can.

A fun way to encourage language is to make stories together: each person can add one part of the story such as one sentence. This can lead to some hilarious stories. 

There is also an amazing book called The Ultimate Alphabet which has a page of items for each letter that have to be found. This has some challenging words so it really expands vocabulary with over a thousand words for the letter ‘s’ on the page. 

All of these games introduce new vocabulary, but there are many other ways to expand vocabulary. For instance, naming the environment where you go around and name everything you see (this can be basic like door or more complex such as parts of a door handle). 

This is also a perfect time to expand vocabulary that relates to parents’ interests such as naming the different art mediums used in painting or the parts of a motorbike. Another way is to describe what you are doing in detail using the correct terminology: “I am using this whisk to aerate the egg whites for my meringue” 

Any activity in which you introduce new words will greatly help your child and this is a wonderful time when we are all together to increase the amount that we talk to one another. 

Have fun learning new words