Learning Vocabulary Words Made Fun
by Elaine Lemons

Description: Hints for helping your kids learn vocabulary words through homemade flashcards and storybooks.
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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.

Elaine Lemons is an author on a site for Creative Writing. Visit her portfolio at http://www.writing.com/authors/october2002

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