Rare Words: Building Vocabulary for Success in School

Baby bookworm, of course, isn't the only one around here doing all the reading.  While I'm not a huge fiction reader (although I do read the occasional mystery novel), I do love psychology textbooks and education-related informational books, so to speak (particularly about language development and literacy).  I think I enjoy these kinds of books lately because it makes me feel like I'm keeping fresh in my field which I need to do since I'm not currently working full-time (well, you know, the mom gig is much more than full time, but I'm not working for a paycheck).  One of the books that I'm currently reading is the national best-seller, The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease (sixth edition, copyright 2006) - you might have heard of it.  Overall the book has great suggestions for parents (and policticans if they're reading) and outlines some astounding research on literacy.  If I can't persuade you to read, read, read to your child - this book will certainly scare you into it (as well as make you want to throw your TV away).  Anyway, I feel the need to quote from his text because I found what he wrote to be very interesting, informational, and inspiring (for this blog topic).  This quote is on the topic of skills necessary for Kindergarten:

"There is one prekindergarten skill that matters above all others, because it is the prime predictor of school success or failure: the child's vocabulary upon entering school.  Yes, the child goes to school to learn new words, but the words he or she already knows determine how much of what the teacher says will be understood.  And since most instruction for the first four years of school is oral, the child who has the largest vocabulary will understand the most, while the child with the smallest vocabulary will grasp the least." (pg. 13)

Umm...that makes perfect sense.  To me anyway.  I have made it a practice to try to "teach" baby bookworm new vocabulary words, but had never really considered the fact that some vocabulary words are more valuable than others.  Trelease goes on to say that understanding "rare words" really plays a crucial role in learning to read and succeeding in school, as opposed to "common" vocabulary that is mostly used in regular conversations.  So where does a little child learn these "rare words"?  You guessed it - books, of course.  But how does a child learn these "rare words"?  That's what I'm about to tell you.

Baby bookworm is 16-months and I know you're probably thinking that aren't ALL words pretty rare to her right now?  And they are to some extent.  But my guess is that baby bookworm  has hundreds of words in her expressive vocabulary (words she can actually say), and might have reached the infamous "vocabulary spurt" that generally occurs around 18-months slightly early.  Baby bookworm has even entered the telegraphic speech stage of language development which generally occurs in children around age 2.  In this stage toddlers begin to put together 2 words at a time (like a telegraph, hence the name) to convey a whole sentence.  For instance she might say "more water" or "daddy home" (my husband's favorite).  So I think it's as good a time as any to make sure I'm doing my part in helping her learn rare words.

So here's a few examples of some rare words that baby bookworm has recently learned, and the strategies I used to help her to acquire this new vocabulary.  These strategies aren't rocket science and are probably things you do anyway.  But, that said, there has been research to show that many adults just read books to children cover to cover without any attention or explanation given to the rare words.  I'm just here to remind you to not fall into that category.   

1). Give the definition or a synonym

Book: David Goes to School, by David Shannon
Rare Word: Tardy

This is a delightful book in the David series where David learns the ins and outs of what to do (and not to do) in school.  This book would actually be great for a teacher to read to his or her class at the onset of a new school year.

Basically, when we got to the page where the teacher says, "David, you're tardy" I explained to baby bookworm that the word tardy means late.  Believe it or not, every time we get to this page she says "he's late".  (I told you this isn't rocket science)

2). Use inference or comparison

Book: Lily's Potty
Rare Word: Whisk
 
This is a lift-the-flap potty training book that baby bookworm really enjoys (as is the case with most lift-the-flap books).  The main character Lily looks for her potty and the reader has to lift the flap to see if the potty is found.  Not surprisingly, Lily finds her potty in the bathroom (not in the garden).

In one of the pictures in the book Lily's mom has a tray full of cookies, and Lily is holding a whisk.  Now, the text does not contain the word "whisk" but baby bookworm kept pointing to the whisk and saying "spoon".  I could have said nice job baby bookworm and moved along, but it was the perfect opportunity to introduce a new word.  So, I explained that it was a "whisk" - which is very much like a spoon because it's a utensil and stirs things but looks a little bit different.

3). Refer to an illustration

Book: The Very Hungry Catepillar by Eric Carle
Rare Word: Cocoon

This book is a classic, and Eric Carle a children's book legend.  In the story a little caterpillar eats his way through a week's worth of food, spins a cocoon and eventually becomes a beautiful butterfly (introducing yet another rare word: metamorphosis).

Can it be any easier than this?  Yes, if you come to a rare word, just point out the illustration that refers to the word! 




4). Use the child's experience

Book: Pumpkin Eye by Denise Fleming
Rare Word: Jack-o-lantern

This is a fun Halloween picture book.  The illustrations have an eerie feel to them but it's a great book for the Fall season.

Not exactly sure if jack-o-lantern falls into the "rare" words category but it's the best I could come up with to illustrate this strategy.  Despite this being a Halloween book we read it all the time, and baby bookworm asks for it by name. The word jack-o-lantern is used throughout this story and not only did I point to the picture of the jack-o-lantern (hence using strategy #3) but I reminded baby bookworm that we carved jack-o-lanterns back when it was Halloween.  I even got out the picture I took of her next to her newly carved pumpkin to help her with this word.

That's it.  Simple, and yet we might be doing these things less than we should be.  Feel free to share your own strategies!  These were adapted from some research I read about in a book called

Beginning Literacy with Language. 

To quote myself in the first paragraph, I hope you have found this post "interesting, informational" and last but not least, "inspiring".     

Just for Fun Friday: Reading for Sheer Pleasure

Fridays have always been my favorite day of the week.  Even when I was working full time, I always looked forward to my Friday work day.  My husband disagrees and says that Saturdays are, in fact, the best day of the week because you don't actually have to go to work.  But, not me, I think Fridays are like Christmas Eve - sometimes the anticipation of something is more fun.  And to me, Friday was always the anticipation of 5:00 when work was over, possibly heading out to happy hour, dinner, a movie, and then I had sleeping in on Saturday mornings and waking up to the realization that I still had one more day off of work to enjoy. Ahhh...well, now that I'm a stay-at-home mom, Fridays don't quite hold the same allure, but I still really like them.  Just for old times sake, I like to keep the "fun" in Friday for baby bookworm and I.  So, today we read several books just for the sake of enjoying time together and having fun with books.  That's it.

Here's how this fun Friday went (Can you even believe how the meaning of this word has changed since becoming a mom to baby bookworm?!  I can't):

The Monster At the End of this Book
by Jon Stone and illustrated by Smollin

Baby bookworm and I have been reading this book since she was itty-bitty.  We actually have the board book version of it.  This book is a story about Grover, a monster from Sesame Street, who is actually afraid of the "monster" at the end of this book so he doesn't want the reader to turn the next page and bring him closer to, you guessed it, the end of the book.  But, it turns out that he IS the monster at the end of the book, and he's lovable and furry (and cute).  It's a really fun book for me to read because I can act completely silly.  Baby bookworm recognizes Grover from Sesame Street now, so enjoys it for that reason too.  I have the most fun exclaiming "YOU TURNED ANOTHER PAGE!"....I can be that actress I never got to be.  It also reinforces some concepts of print, by the way, as it directs baby bookworm to the END of the book.

The Boss Baby
by Marla Frazee

Hmm...does the title sound familiar?  Yes, in most families the baby is boss.  That's why this book is sooooo darn cute (and makes a great gift for new parents of a baby boy).  Baby bookworm and I read this story often and she likes it.  The illustrations are great - there's something very amusing about a baby in a tie with a briefcase who sets up his office right "smack dab" in the middle of the living room!  Baby bookworm talks about "boss baby" all the time.  Hmmm....I wonder if she's actually referring to herself in third person.

To finish up our fun Friday, we took a trip to the park.  Nothing like crisp, fresh air and sunshine after a long, long, ever so long, winter.  While I may not have sleeping in tomorrow to look forward to tonight, at least I have looking forward to seeing her adorable face in the morning......and enjoying many more good books together.  Gosh, how fun HAS changed.

Library "Daze" - Be a model reader

Yesterday was a perfect morning for a library day, since it was pouring down rain.  Nothing better than snuggling up to some new books on a day like that.....and that is exactly what we did. 

We attended our usual story time session and this week's theme was the city.  One of the books Ms Carla read was a book by   Karen Katz called Subway.  Unfortunately getting baby bookworm to sit during these toddler sessions is next to impossible these days, as she is very distracted by the other kids, by the yellow sheets of laminated papers parents get so they can say the rhymes along with Ms Carla, and by all the other books on the bookshelves (although, I must say, I AM proud when she picks one up and says "read it" to me, even if she's not listening to Ms Carla's book).  Nevertheless, I thought this book was cute and it tied nicely into the city theme.  Karen Katz has written lots and lots (22 I think) of books for babies and toddlers.  Her illustrations are quite distinctive and she has some cute lift-the-flap books such as Where are Baby's Easter Eggs? (a fun one for this time of year). My baby bookworm really enjoys Counting Kisses, which by the way, is great at teaching numerical skills (see my post on Baby Math for some other ideas) and body parts.  On a side note, this whole city lesson got me thinking that baby bookworm does need to take a trip into the city soon!  Ah...but the rain and the weather in our city has NOT been cooperative as of late, but I can feel a trip on the train downtown coming up soon.  Hopefully. 

Now, on to the books we will be reading this week:

The City Kid & The Suburban Kid
written by Deb Pilutti and Illustrated by Linda Bleck

This was a baby bookworm pick (um...maybe she was listening to Ms Carla after all?!).  It's a story about two friends, Jack and Adam.  One lives in the city and the other in the suburbs and they each go take a visit to the others house and discover what they do and don't like about their friend's surroundings.  The book is really two stories in one.  You read one of the boy's adventures and then flip the book to read the other boy's.  Baby bookworm really likes the illustrations because they are busy with lots of colors.  I don't have a huge learning agenda for this book, other than to reinforce the vocabulary words of city and suburb (more on exactly how to do this in a post to come), and we've been going over opposites lately so this does fit right in.  Good pick bookworm.

My "t" Sound Box
by Jane Belk Moncure and illustrated by Linda Sommers
copyright 1977

As I have mentioned several times, even though baby bookworm is only 16 months she has recently taken a very strong liking to letters and their sounds.  I attribute this not only to reading with her so much, but several toys she likes to play with (the Leap Frog word builder fridge phonics toy and a Leap Frog mini-laptop - which I highly recommend) and her favorite TV shows on PBS (Sesame Street and Super Why).  A few weeks ago we checked out the "d" sound box and she loved it, so here we are at "t".  As a lesson on the "t" sound I plan on reading this book as well as one of my favorites The Teeny Tiny Woman (the book repeats teeny-tiny over and over and over; my favorite version of this "ghost tale" is in Richard Scarry's Animal Nursery Tales book) which will reinforce the sound and letter through alliteration.




Leap Frog Word Builder

I Broke My Trunk! (An Elephant and Piggie Book)
words and pictures by Mo Willems
copyright 2011

Because you can't ever go wrong with a Mo Willems book, we had to get it.  And it's brand-spanking new.  Hopefully it looks as new when we give it back to the library.  Baby Bookworm tends to want to read his books a million times.





Finn Throws a Fit!
by David Elliott and illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering
copyright 2009

And last, but not least, we got this book because the title sounds oh so familiar from time to time.  This book is just plain fun.  Baby bookworm LOVES it, partially in part because I imitate Finn throwing a fit, and partially in part because she likes the pictures. OK, loves the pictures.  I don't know a thing about art, but there is something in the pictures that does remind me of David Shannon's books and illustrations, which is probably why she likes it.  Well, anyway, we look forward to reading this book over and over....it may be one we end up buying.

Thanks to Ms Carla, I left the library with some reading material for myself....a photocopied newspaper article titled "Johnny's dad doesn't read: Men must set a better example for their sons by encouraging curiosity" by Walter Bowne.  The author makes the valid point that reading needs to be modeled in the home, particularly by men. So I guess the point is, if you want your baby to be a bookworm and enjoy reading.....you better get out the reading materials yourself!  And that brings me full circle - make that trip to the library with your daughter AND son today - they will thank you for it in the long run.  Even check out a few books for yourself (you know I did).

Baby Math: Teaching Counting and Geometry with Books

I spend so much time working on letters and prereading skills with my baby bookworm, that I've realized I often ignore another fundamental skill - counting and mathematics.  Apparently I'm not alone though.  According to one of my all-time favorite parent books, Baby Minds by Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn (if you have a child under 3, get this book!), part of the reason that American children lag so far behind other countries in mathematics (namely Japan and China) has a lot to do with culture, environment, and most importantly, how parents "teach" children about math.  In a nutshell, Asian parents place more emphasis on math, do more day-to-day activities that involve math, and believe that their children are more capable of mathematical skills at a younger age.  So maybe we (Americans) can stop blaming the educational system and take a look at what we do with our children at a young age.  I am a firm believer that experiences, and especially early experiences, matter.  The authors of Baby Minds outline lots of fun activities that you can do with your child to help not only their arithmetic but also spacial-temporal abilities (yes, like baby geometry skills).  But, my blog isn't about baby games, it's about learning through books.  Here's some books that I'm using with my baby bookworm to help both of these abilities.  I don't want to fall into the category of American parents who ignore or under represent these important skills!

123 Philadelphia - A Cool Counting Book
by Puck and illustrated by Kevin Sommers

There's no dialogue here.  Just a book of "cool" Philadelphia things to count.  There are many, many, many counting books similar to this one in format (take Olivia Counts for example), but it's just one we happen to have on our bookshelf.  With my baby bookworm I use this book to reinforce the counting concepts of one-to-one correspondence (the notion that each item has it's own counting label), the cardinality rule (the name of last item we count represents the quantity of the entire set of items), and the flexible application rule (that no matter what objects we're looking at, whether it's Philly pretzels or colonial hats, we count them in the same way, using the same counting words). 


Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes
by Mem Fox and illustrated Helen Oxenbury

I love, love this book.  It shows how every baby, even though they are all born in different places, has 10 little fingers and 10 little toes.  It's very fun to count our own fingers and our own toes together, and I often say things like: There are 5 fingers on this hand, and 5 fingers on this hand, they are the "same".  Or, let's count all of our fingers and toes....and then we count to 20. With older kids it might be fun to try some addition here, or to count by 5's! 

Balancing Act
by Ellen Stoll Walsh

This is a cute book about two mice on a seesaw, and as some other friends come along they are either out of balance or balanced ("ta-da" as the books says).  What I like to do with this book is talk about the concepts more, less, and the same.  These words are not in the book, but you'll catch on once you read it.  It's short and to the point, so a great book for babies and toddlers.  You can also do a similar lesson with other books using concepts like bigger and smaller (might I suggest Curious George Bigger and Smaller).

Soft, Fluffy, Playful, Puppies

Yes, so here we are at geometry for babies.  There are lots of things you can do to facilitate your child's spatial-temporal skills.  Nesting blocks are great, as are shape sorters, and of course puzzles!  Baby bookworm has this really cute book about puppies and the puppies come out as puzzle pieces.  I'm sure there are other books with a similar idea.  Be sure to give your baby bookworm time to try to solve the puzzle himself! 

Baby Bookworm's shape sorter

Baby bookworms nesting blocks

Books that have a pattern for a child to figure out would also fall into this category, although I couldn't think of any, so let me know if you have one in mind.  And, of course, so would kid cook books - the mathematical lessons are endless here.  I can't wait to be able to cook with my bookworm.

Have fun!  I hope you find some baby math of your own in your favorite books!

Going on a Bear Hunt: Read and Reenact to Build Gross Motor Skills

Baby bookworm and I not only check out books from the library, but also lots of CDs.  As having a baby gives me an excuse to relive my childhood, at some point in time I had checked out a classic version (i.e., 70s or 80s) of Sesame Street songs.  Not really to my surprise, baby bookworm took to these songs, despite their being decades old.  Recently, though, after listening to a song on this CD sung by Grover called Over, Under, Around, and Through....I thought, wow, that reminds me of that book We're Going On A Bear Hunt  (I'm constantly looking for inspiration and connections from our daily lives that I can reinforce through books). I can CLEARLY remember sitting at circle time chanting We're Going On A Bear Hunt in my first grade class with my teacher, Miss Custer.  So at this week's trip to the library, I decided to revisit this fun, chanty, sing-a-long kind of story with an element of excitement.  My learning agenda with this book was threefold: I could reinforce those prepositional words from Grover's song (i.e., enhance vocabulary/comprehension), further develop her gross motor skills in a fun way by recreating our own bear hunt, and teach her about onomatopoeic words. So, alas, here we are going on a bear hunt....and he's our learning experience.

Of course, as I have mentioned in my Read Aloud Tips, I always read the book through at least once with no learning agenda so that I don't disrupt the flow of the book and baby bookworm can get acquainted with the story and characters.  I tried the first and third objectives below on the second read through.  The second objective was more of a reenactment of the story and I didn't try to "read" the book at the same time....we did it from memory. 

1) Comprehension/Vocabulary - The words over, under, and through are used frequently throughout the story because the story line is repetitive in nature (which makes this a great book for infants, toddlers, and school-aged children).  Rather than just reading these words, I specifically pointed them out to my baby bookworm.  So, for instance, in the story when they get to the river and say, "we can't go OVER it"...I put real emphasis on the word OVER and asked her to repeat it (she's really getting the hang of this talking thing).  Then I basically had a conversation with myself (using some dialogic reading techniques), "how would they go OVER the river?" "When do we go OVER rivers? How?" Then I did the same sort of thing with under and through...

2). Gross Motor Skills - Let's face it, most people (and kids) learn by doing.  Learning theorists such as Piaget and Vygotsky have long suggested that taking an active, rather than passive, role in learning is critical to the process of acquiring new knowledge (this is known as a constructivist view of learning).  So, I decided to act out the story with my baby bookworm so that she would actually be going OVER, UNDER, and THROUGH....  I got my inspiration for this activity from a great book called Read! Move! Learn! Active Stories for Active Learning by Carol Totsky Hammett and Nicki Collins Geigert.  Baby bookworm and I created a river (which was really her bathtub filled with water and a toy fish and crab), a snowstorm (which was really bubbles), we pretended we came across mud and took our shoes and socks off to go THROUGH the mud, a cave (made out of a dark basket with a bear, of course), and then we climbed UNDER our covers like in the book, to get away from the bear.  This is just what I had around, but use your own imagination to create a bear hunt that caters to your child.  She had lots of fun climbing over, under, and through (while at the same time enhancing motor skills).

Our "river"

Our "cave" and bear

Back to safety under the covers like in the picture in the book (shown below)

From some Baby Einstein flashcards we have....it has great information about bears we read on the back of the card

3). Onomatopoeic words - Each time the characters in this book go THROUGH something (like the river) it makes a fun sound (e.g., splash, splosh!).  Baby bookworm and I had a blast saying these words, and they helped her to learn about letter blends in words. 

I hope you all "catch a big one"!