How does ds age 7 increase vocabulary?

[Jesusgirl]

I'm after a bit of advice please on how my 7 year old ds can expand his vocabulary.

He's always been a good reader but only started 'enjoying' reading since starting year 3, so I suppose reading would help but I noticed that he doesn't bother checking up on words he doesn't know. He really can't be bothered!

How does your dc learn new words? Thanks.

You could let him read to you then discuss the story. Ask him what he thinks various words mean. He might be making an educated guess from the context of the story rather than just ignoring the words he doesn't know. If he is doing this is he sometimes correct? I think you need to spend some time with him to find out what he is doing. Plus does he particularly do this when he is tired or in a rush? Does he ask questions at other times?

I noticed he usually guesses correctly based on the context and he does ask if he really can't guess.

When he's reading, I randomly ask him what a word means, he asks to read the whole sentence and then tells me what he means but he might not necessarily be able to tell me what the word means on it's own.

What brought my attention to it really was him doing some verbal reasoning worksheets where you choose a word from one group of words that'll go with another from a second group to form a new word. The answer was OUT + LAW but he got it wrong because he didn't know there was a word called outlaw, instead he chose other side!!!

I was going to say read Richmal Crompton books as they have great vocabulary. Then your ds will know exactly what an outlaw is as Just William was an outlaw. and they are fabulous stories.

I think audio books are fab. They take any pressure off, and my dc seem to absorb new vocab far faster than when they read themselves.

Our library always has a lot and I trawl the charity shops for more choice.

Often you do need to hear the whole sentence though to get the meaning of a word (eg fair has more than one meaning, then there is fare as well).

I am not surprised your DS didn't know "outlaw". It is not a word I say or read very often.

There are some tricky words out there (cupboard and yacht are two of my favourites) and it does take years and years of practice to get to know thousands of words.

DC2 is 13 and is always asking what words mean. DC1 at 16 still asks occasionally. It is a long haul.

My DD aged 7 is always asking about words in our bedtime story. Unfortunately the more her vocabulary increases, the more words she asks about, and the harder they are to explain . Last night I had to define "sussurus" and "incontrovertible".
It's my fault really for having books everywhere. She reads voraciously and I assume once you've seen a word in context more than a few times you can work out what it means.

If he reads a lot, his vocabulary will improve even if he does not look up all words which are new to him.

I still read aloud to ds for this very reason and go in a lot for older style books that he might find too daunting to read on his own. And make sure we talk about the contents in an informal way.

Thanks for your replies.

He was an early reader and has read fluently for a long time but never really enjoyed reading. Up until start of school this September. He just suddenly developed a love for reading. Not too sure what happened but I'm glad though!

I'm hoping that'll help increase his use of words.

I guess I should read more to him- I hardly ever do that anymore, I guess I was of the opinion that you only read to kids that can't read themselves!

I noticed though that since he started reading for fun, he has started to use more 'not so straight forward words'. For instance the other day, he said 'I like the details on the picture he'd usually have said 'I like that there're so many colours and shapes in that picture'!