Learning More Words
Activity 1: Pictures.
Use old magazines, pictures from the computer or even
hand drawn pictures. Make a collage on a large poster size sheet of paper. The
collage can be haphazard or depict a scene. Ask the child to name items in the
collage. Write he things they name on small slips of paper, or post-it notes.
Place, but do not stick the words on the poster. Ask the child to look at the
pictures and read the words under each picture. Remove the labels and then ask
the child to place them. When they get words consistently correct allow them to
paste the word to the poster.
This activity helps learn new words because many of the
words begin differently. For example if you have a refrigerator in the picture,
then the child can probably label it by recognizing just the refr
part of the word. Once they have done it a few times they can probably recognize
the word without the picture t remind them.
Activity 2: Similar Words
Use word flash cards again with this one. Write groups
of words with similar sounds. Use colored markers and mark the similar sound in
one color and he differing sound in another. Use different parts of words that
are similar. Examples:
|
Initial sound similar |
End sound similar |
|
man |
mast |
|
mat |
last |
|
mad |
past |
|
mast |
cast |
This activity is is particularly good for
teaching word patterns.
Activity 3: Mixed up sentences
Write about ten simple sentences on strips of paper.
Glue each sentence to a different color of construction paper, and cut them up.
Ask the child to reassemble the sentence. Then try making different sentences
using words from some of the other sentences. Silly, meaningless sentences are
fine, provided the child can read what they have produced. In order to get them
to make silly sentences you may need to make a few yourself. Children are often
unsure of what is and isnt acceptable to an adult. Make silly sentences and
laugh about them! Have a competition to see who can make the silliest sentence,
or the longest sentence. Because of the problem of capitalizing initial words in
sentences, it is probably better to ignore capital letters altogether and write
the entire sentence in lower case. Children rarely remember the rule anyway, and
may become confused by a capital letter in the middle of a sentence. If your
child does know and remember the rule, you can just ask when the sentence is
done, which letter should be capitalized and where the period should be.