Making Vocabulary Personal

Work with words relevant to students' lives to help them build vocabulary. The more relevant new words are to students' lives, the more likely they are to take hold.

A great assignment that will keep your child interested while helping you learn more about them is the "Personal Alphabet Adjectives."  For each letter of the alphabet, the students find an appropriately descriptive word for themselves. Students elaborate on the word by writing sentences and creating an illustration. In the process, they make extensive use of the dictionary and thesaurus.

For the letter "H", my daughter describes her personality as sometimes "Hasty", illustrating the word with a sloppy drawing of herself wearing a mismatched outfit with messy hair. Her caption explains that she is "hasty" getting ready to go to school.

Try to make reading and writing personal, fun and expressive. Education doesn't have to be a chore, if you are willing to be creative. Think of it as an opportunity to turn a chore into a fun experience that the kids will remember.