How to improve verbal reasoning 11+

[Salisburymumxxxx]

My son is taking the 11+ for state grammar in September. He’s fine in everything apart from the verbal reasoning which he finds incredibly difficult - he just doesn’t know so many of the words! He reads and we read to him a lot but the books are probably a bit too immature - think David Walliams and Roald Dahl rather than classics with greater vocabulary, but he’s young for the year and it’s what he enjoys. He gets top marks at school for English but he’s just not getting better at verbal reasoning!
Any tips for how to improve it? I find some of the words hard myself, and I have an English degree! 🤣

Are you using a tutor?

And he'll have his mark standardised for his summer birthday so he won't be at a disadvantage because of that

No we are doing the prep ourselves. We have two other children in grammar schools without a paid tutor but neither of them struggled with VR.
I know the test mark will be standardised but I meant his age and maturity makes him want to read books that aren’t as advanced as some of his classmates! I know reading is one of best ways to improve VR.
Thanks for your reply. 😊

Would he listen to audiobooks at a higher level?
Id go for variety- so some newspapers, factual, along with sone mire traditional stuff.

Do you talk through the answers, or just mark them wrong? I did some verbal and non verbal stuff with the kids when we had hardly any work from school in lockdown 1. If they came across something tgeg had no idea about, we talked it through. Yes, sometimes it wasnt right first time, but we learnt new words, but also techniques. There is often a very clear wrong answer, which can improve the odds of selecting the right answer! So exam technique plays a part too.

He'll probably be fine, kids usually have one paper they prefer
It's hard when you're the youngest and you have older siblings who passed
My youngest found out she had passed last October which was nerve racking having four older siblings at grammar but we tried to play it down and had a good plan B

Audiobooks are a good idea. We read to him every night, he loves it, so will try and choose some harder books. We do talk it through.

Yes it’s an extra pressure isn’t it @MissSmiley - hopefully his other subjects will bring his grade up.

Do you think it’s too late to make a big improvement now? I’m starting to doubt our decision not to get a tutor!

It’s never too late, DS only decided he wanted to do the test of 25th May (I know the date because it’s his birthday!) in the year of the test! He didn’t know all the words but he was a natural at figuring things out. Spelling was his weakness in the English paper so he just had to do his best and hope that he scored highly enough in the other papers to even if our, which he did 😊.

Oh and he didn’t have a tutor either, so it can be done by yourself.

It's not too late for a tutor but the biggest difference in my opinion will come from reading more advanced books. Some of the kids he will be up against will have been reading child appropriate adult novels (eg. The Hobbit, Treasure Island, Animal Farm, Curious Incident of the Dog, Hitchhikers Guide).
However, different schools have different emphases and maybe if your DC is stronger and more interested in the maths side of things then a school that places less emphasis on the VR score may be better for him.

@MiddlesexGirl there’s no choice on the school really, it’s the state grammar or the nearest comp. If he can get through the test I’m confident he’ll be fine at the grammar - I know it pretty well.

That’s good to hear @LadyCatStark ☺️

It’s really just reading to improve the vocabulary IMO. Familiarisation with the types of question will help somewhat but you’ve identified the problem yourself - he doesn’t know the words. I don’t think a tutor will help much with this at this stage to be honest. Better to get him reading a lot, and as you say, it needs to be the higher level stuff. It’s fine to read DW and wimpy kid and so on but if he wants to go to grammar school he also needs to be reading higher level stuff IMO.

There's no substitute for more reading

Do include poetry - perhaps try one of those poem a day anthologies?

A Series of Unfortunate Events is good for his age, and has some excellent vocabulary in it (which is explained, as part of the plot).
How To Train Your Dragon series also has good vocabulary.

Ordered a ton of books to work through this summer! Am still hopeful his other high marks will pull him up but you never know. Thanks all! 😄

Also came on to recommend reading including a Series of Unfortunate Events but I see it's already been mentioned.

On an average evening of me reading to DC (age 7 and 9) I end up explaining the meaning of approx five words so over time that adds up. Also we do word of the day over breakfast, which usually includes listing 2-3 synonyms and antonyms. Such a fun family

Doing crosswords also helps.

We used these
www.vocabularyflashcards.co.uk/
And also audiobooks - his dark materials/Harry Potter/Sherlock Holmes.
Tutors are a complete waste of time for us as the boys are very compliant (and it means we can concentrate on the things they’re unsure about).

I had a non fiction reader, no way was i going to be able to persuade him to read fiction or read audiobooks. He read books on supercars, wildlife and gaming. So, to improve vocabulary, we played Articulate, we watched the news and read news articles, and everytime a word cropped up in conversation that we thought he may not have heard much before, we asked him to try and give the meaning, and spell it. We then spoke about any homophones of the word or associated words, wherever the conversation took us.That and practice of verbal reasoning in Bond books, but certaiy not intense tutoring of hours per week.