Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Help Your Child Develop Good Vocabulary

One important part of the Montessori educational program is that we always use precise and accurate vocabulary with children.

For those of you with infants and toddlers, this may seem silly. Why describe an oval as an oval and not just a funny circle? The reason is that that children under six years of age soak in language at an amazing rate of speed. Everything that they hear gets absorbed and goes into their vocabulary base.

For older children, this language use process continues to be important and key to developing good vocabulary and reading skills. Explain to your child why a decagon is a decagon and not an octagon, for example.

Accurate language also helps your child learn how to describe and understand his or her world.

Montessori curriculum for parents to use at home (newsletter format) on our site here.

1 comment:

MB said...

You are so right about this. My daughter is 22 months and learned the difference between and oval and circle in no time, it was just a matter of me presenting the vocabulary for her to use. Now I work hard to move on to bigger and better words everytime she masters one. No need to call water just water if it can be a pond, a lake, the ocean, etc.