What other ways are there to increase a nine year old's vocabulary?

[emkana]

There is talking, of course. But as I do that in German it doesn't help dd with her English vocabulary. Reading - she does that a lot, reasonably challenging books as well. (Has recently read Anne of Green Gables and Little Women) Dh is working a lot so even though he is English he won't be much help. So any other ideas?

btw I'm thinking ahead in particular to the verbal reasoning part of the Grammar school test.

thanks anyway

Get her to listen to audio books, in the car,before she sleeps etc. This will allow her to access more difficult books and listen to a native english speaker at the same time

crosswords, scrabble, word puzzles, etc?

World Service on the radio.

For verbal reasoning tests I'm not convinced that concentrating on extending her vocabulary is particularly the way to go. DD is a twisted child who does NVR and VR papers for fun (she found some in Smiths a few years ago) and even the 11+ papers don't actually use that complicated vocab. Can't think how to articulate what I mean, but even for VR, pattern spotting ability and a strategy are needed. The language just isn't that advanced IME. A game like Boggle probably would help, I think.

When I teach Y5/6 and want to encourage them to extend their vocabulary I play Boggle with them and also Taboo. Having a dictionary and thesaurus readily available for casual access is useful too; children in my classes would often jot down words they'd encountered in their reading then look it up and come across meanings but also related words.

I am also worried about my Dd's vocabulary as we are non english speakers at home. I find it useful to have a small First Thresaurus (Schofield&Sims) in the car and read a few headwords a day on the way to school, we turn it into a game as I ask her to guess as many synonyms as she can first and then look it up.Needless to say, it is a lesson for me too.
S&S also have a brilliant Understanding English Vocabulary KS2 book with lots of exersises