How to help teen with vocabulary

[Snoopsnoggysnog]

Son starting year 9 at academic school. His vocab is quite poor for his age and I’m often surprised when he doesn’t know the meaning of quite basic words.

He does read but doesn’t seem to be able to grasp the meaning of a word he doesn’t know from context and doesn’t recall meanings easily.

When he was younger we tried flash cards etc.
does anyone have any advice or ideas for what could help at this age? I want him to go into his GCSE years with a decent range of vocabulary and be able to deduce meaning without knowing all the words. He’s very average at English comprehension questions.

He’s pretty good at maths, DT and excellent at languages which is why I can’t understand his lack of progress in English. Thanks in advance.

Get him reading at Year9-10 material and ask him to write down every word he doesn't understand and then research it. Books will help him widen his vocab massively

Offer him a quid for every new word he learns

What sort of stuff is he reading and watching? Is it maybe a bit samey so therefore not exposin him to new concepts or modes of language? Tbh i think these are the unparalleled ways to pick up new words. I'm not sure that flashcards and things will activate the same parts of the brain that learning a word used in context would.

It's great that he reads; so many teenagers seem to drop that pretty quickly.

Do you use a varied vocabulary yourself in every day speech?

Would he read from a kindle, and use the dictionary function on there?

Listen to podcasts that interest him and each time a word comes up that he doesn't know the meaning of - pause and look it up. That way he is hearing the correct pronunciation, in the right context, then he knows what it means and is more likely to use it himself.

It doesn't matter what the podcast is about be it Roblox or Politics, comedic or not, it's all about the words.

Use the words yourself.

Sorry, I'm not being facetious, but the easiest thing to do to encourage high level literacy skills is to normalise them by modelling them yourselves.

Identify where your son's area of interest is and focus solely on that area. Whether it's fiction or fact, fantasy or comics, it doesn't matter. He'll not progress if he's reading something that he's not enthusiastic about, but he will if it makes him smile.
And use the techniques mentioned. If the reading material has corresponding alternative media, then all the better. E.g. Lord of the Rings, the book, and Lord of the Rings, the Movie. If you need to, you could work with him researching individual words and then asking him to use those words in a written piece, perhaps even in a WhatsApp message to you! It's all about capturing the child's interest.

I think normalising a wide vocabulary is important in the home. Use synonyms of words you use all the time.

So his room is not "a tip", it's "an abomination". Dinner is not delicious, it's "delectable". Those are just silly examples, but you don't have to go too far out of your comfort zone to introduce some good synonyms.

Not being able to infer the meaning of a word from context could point to a SpLD. Worth investigating? Otherwise read a variety of different material including broadsheet newspapers and model expansive language at home.