Learning Vocabulary Words Made Fun
When my child began reading in school I had a difficult time
getting him interested in reading at home. Reading to him was a
chore and he did not want to study his vocabulary words. We
would sit on the couch every evening with his Reading Book and
read the week's story at least twice. My son was struggling and
it was apparent he didn't recognize many words. It was a
troubling time for the two of us and I didn't know what to do.
At first I thought he was just being a bit lazy and stubborn. I
decided I would handle the homework dilemma in a stern manner.
That meant no playtime until he read his story and learned at
least four words every evening from his word list. My poor child
would sit at the kitchen table every day with the most pitiful
look...despair. He would whine and complain, making me so angry.
Homework became a very stressful event in our home. It actually
got to the point that I think I was dreading it more than my
child.
One night we had been working on four words for about thirty
minutes when I thought I was going to come unglued. He still
didn't recognize any of them.
"They're simple words, son!" I raised my voice.
He gave me that little shy and embarrassed look and I told him
to write each word four times while saying the word aloud
repeatedly. He began to do as I told him and I briefly walked
away to calm my temper. When I returned to the kitchen I found
him sitting at the table playing with the salt and peppershakers
as if they were matchbox cars. I almost exploded. I snatched the
shakers off the table and told him to get busy in a very ugly
tone. He started crying. At that very moment I felt like a bad
parent and so defeated. I cried myself.
I spent the rest of the night trying to think how in the world I
was going to get my child interested in learning and reading. I
knew I had to make it fun and the first thing that popped in my
head was to make flashcards. So I made the flashcards out of
regular paper and started working with him. I was acting silly
with each word and he was laughing at me. We had a lot of fun
but it quickly became boring to him. My paper flashcards were
not working as I had thought. I brought my son into my craft
room and began cutting card stock. He was a bit intrigued with
the process and kept asking what we were going to make. I really
didn't have a plan until I saw that little glimmer in his eyes.
I told him he was going to make his own flashcards and use
whatever he thought we needed. An hour later we had the most
precious flashcards imaginable. On one side I would write the
word and we would discuss its meaning. On the other side he drew
pictures representing the word. He was having a ball. He used
markers, glue, construction paper, and occasionally we would
toss a little glitter here and there. We had the grandest set of
cards and he was learning!
I came up with another idea. Since he had a test on Friday I
told him that if he learned his vocabulary words by Thursday we
would write our own story after reading from his Reading Book.
The catch was that the story had to include his vocabulary words
and he would have to write it himself. I would help him with his
spelling and such. He wasn't too thrilled with the idea at first
until we got started and he realized that he could write about
anything he wanted. Our first story we did together. It was
about a little boy who didn't want to read. Every Thursday night
we would work on a story and he would read it aloud when it was
completed. He was so proud of his stories and became such a
little illustrator drawing pictures for each page. Writing his
own stories helped him learn more than just the word list for
the week, he was working on his penmanship, learning about
periods, capitalization, more words, etc. When he began reading
poetry he was very excited about writing his own poems, which he
did.
How I miss those days since he has gotten older, but he and I
both have the memories of all the quality time we spent learning
together. He reads by himself now, but sometimes he comes home
from school with a story he wrote just for mom. Illustrations
included.