11+ Vocabulary

[winkywinkola]

Dd is sitting the 11+ in Bucks this September.

She's been plodding along with exam technique sessions with a tutor but the amount of vocabulary she has to learn (or is advised to learn) is astonishing.

We've been given lists and lists of words. Not really inspirational for learning or retention.

Has anyone found a more productive way of learning all these words? Any books to recommend please?

I don't know about the Bucks exam-dd sat the B'ham one a couple of years ago, but reading newspapers and more old fashioned books was supposed to be the best way to help.

(By old fashioned, I took it to mean Enid Blyton, Just William, watership down, the hobbit and lotr, that kind of thing.)

And always have a dictionary and thesaurus handy!

As Dolt says general reading is really the key. DD would read a book and have a slip of paper as a book mark and write down any words she didn't know and the page they were on and we'd go through them at the weekend if we didn't have time in the evening. Context is essential to understanding. Also in day to day life challenge your DD to offer some synonyms to common words. It became a bit of a game with our DD and the habit has stuck and it's been great for her creative writing. As for books to recommend - it is really what grabs your child's imagination as that gets them reading more. DD loved dystopian fiction and science fact books plus The Week Junior. Good luck.

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