How to increase vocabulary of 10-year-old DS?

[juneau]

DS1 will be sitting his 11+ next year and he's unfamiliar with many of the words that are coming up in practice VR tests. He's bright and reads a lot and is in the top set for English, but seeing what he's expected to know I'm just wondering how we're going to get him familiar with so many additional words in just 9 months. Does anyone have any ideas that don't involved just sitting and reading the dictionary???

[TERFragetteCity]

I bought my DSD and niece those magnetic poetry words around that age and we used to make up crazy poems just to explain what the words meant. Are there any that match that level?

[TrollTheRespawnJeremy]

Get the whole family involved. Have mini competitions to see who can come up with the most obscure word to describe things.

And reading, reading, reading. Lots of fiction. Books like the Narnia series which are of a different era use a lot of formalised language that is less common in books nowadays.

[Norestformrz]

Have you seen vocabulary Ninja?

[juneau]

Oooh I like Vocabulary Ninja! Thanks guys. Any other ideas? I've just bought a Scrabble set and it's not just for me, honest

[HeyMicky]

Agree with reading "older" texts. Treasure island. Robinson Crusoe. Swallows and Amazons. Twain. Jungle book or just so stories. Anne of green gables. Gulliver's travels. Wizard of Oz.

You need more formal language.

[rainydogday]

Is vocabulary ninja an actual app? Can't seem to find it

[TrollTheRespawnJeremy]

www.vocabularyninja.co.uk/

With a link to the app store for it.

[rainydogday]

The link takes me to twitter and nothing comes up that resembles vocab lab in App Store

[TrollTheRespawnJeremy]

//www.vocabularyninja.co.uk should take you to their website frontpage. Maybe your phone is glitchy and redirecting?

Here's the direct link to the app store

itunes.apple.com/gb/app/vocab-lab/id1372258177?mt=8

[Norestformrz]

The app is called vocabulary lab but it's very new so still developing

[Norestformrz]

Try https://vocabularyninja.wordpress.com/category/word-of-the-day/ it's free

[mmzz]

Use the words yourself in everyday speech and encourage your DC to ask each and every time he hears an unfamiliar word. That's how our DC came to have a good vocabulary: we just spoke normally around them and they learned through conversing.
You could also switch it up a bit and discuss a word every family meal time.

[MissTeri]

If your DS enjoys writing short stories or poetry then you could get an empty jar and fill it with words you'd like him to learn, then each day/every other day/whatever, he has to pick out 5 words and incorporate them into a poem or story. Or perhaps you could just ask him to see if he can try to use them in general conversation with you throughout the day.

[Graduate223]

Anguished English is a funny book about English written mistakes, you have to have a good vocabulary to understand the jokes so explaining that to him might help him.

[Tomorrowillbeachicken]

Read to him

[user789653241]

My ds gets lots of new vocab from doing these sites. He is a collector, he does look up words if he doesn't know willingly.

www.readworks.org/ article a day in particular
readtheory.org/

But funnily, he gets most of his interesting vocab from playing games, which isn't educational at all. But even the teachers questioned me how he knew some words, and it's all from the games he play.

[juneau]

Thanks again. I've read to him every day since he was born! We're currently on the final book of the His Dark Materials trilogy. As for using wide vocabulary myself - I do - I'm an avid reader, a lover of languages of all kinds and he is always praised by his English teachers for his wide vocabulary. However, the 11+ exams require something more than this and as someone who sat English A level (many years ago ...), I'm quite staggered by the amount of words DC of this age are expected to understand and know how to use - pilfer, aqueous, mariner, aptitude, forfeit, plausible, bombastic, austere, refined, affix, periphery, delectable, impede ... I could go on, but these are all very advanced words for a 10-year-old.

[juneau]

Unfortunately, he doesn't like writing stories or poetry - he only does that if he's been set it as homework. What he likes doing is playing football/rugby/cricket or playing computer games.

[user789653241]

Ha, that list of words actually makes me smile, my ds has no problem with them, not because he reads avidly, but because he played video games since young. Only word he(10) wouldn't know would be "austere".

[juneau]

What computer games does he play? I bet its not fucking Fortnite ...

[mmzz]

They are advanced words for a 10 year old. Only a highly intelligent and extremely articulate 10 year would use them, or even know them, but isn't that what they are looking for?
They are everyday words though. eg surely his teacher has said to him at some point "you show a strong aptitude for ..."?

[Isadora2007]

Is the 11 plus to get into a school? (In Scotland so we dont do 11 plus)

If he enjoys reading maybe some older fashioned traditional books could be helpful.

[user789653241]

He played RPG games from decades ago, that I had collection of, which involved a lot of reading texts. Also he always put subtitles on for anything he watches, it's a habit I had for being a foreigner, and my ds has adapted since toddler.

[juneau]

Yes, Isadora it's for selective secondaries.

I think I'll have to manage the books he reads a bit more closely. He loves adventure books and devoured 11 Alex Riders in a row, despite my pleading for him to read something else. Thing is, he really does have opinions of his own now, so isn't as easily persuaded to do what I'd like him to!

mmzz he did know a few of them, including aptitude, but to me the list is more 13+ sort of vocab. I know lots of Year 5s and I can't think of one who would use many of those sorts of words in their speech - and many of them are bright DC who read widely.

[user789653241]

Also I think use of thesaurus is very helpful. My ds uses electronic dictionary when reading, and rather use thesaurus function to find out the meaning rather than dictionary function. Added bonus of learning extra words.