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
