Overview
At KidWrite!, we believe a strong vocabulary is essential – whether or not kids are taking SATs, AP classes, or whatever is next. We also believe that making vocabulary acquisition as painless as possible gives kids room for their natural curiosity to kick in. With that in mind, our KW Word Work program starts building a kid’s vocabulary from Day One.
Shades of Meaning
Think about it: Every kid understands the basic concept behind words like run, carry, eat, red, and blue. They get the idea of shades of blue by choosing among their blue crayons or colored pencils. When they first are asked to reach for Blue and select Periwinkle, they don’t need to be able to articulate what it means to be Periwinkle. They also don’t need to be able to articulate the “blueness” of Periwinkle. The flip side of this is that when they read about Navy Blue or Sky Blue or Periwinkle Blue, they know they are reading about nuances of the color Blue.
Kids can do this because they grasp that there are shades of meaning. We work with the same principle by starting with the Children’s Thesaurus by Scholastic. (In fact, if you sign up for our KW Word Work program and mention this post, we’ll send your kid a new copy along with some other word-oriented “stuff.”) We use the headword for each entry as the core word, then use games, puzzles, and exercises to learn the synonyms and antonyms for each of those core words. By the time we’re done with Level I, the kids know hundreds of headwords and their synonyms and antonyms.
The Program Spirals
KW Word Work is part of our Spiral Curriculum that grows with your kid. In Level II, we talk about prefixes and suffixes. We also talk about the nuances of the synonyms and antonyms and why we might use one or the other. The games, puzzles, and excercises we use for this expand their vocabulary beyond Level I, while ensuring that the kids “own” the words and their meanings.
The KW Word Work program spirals up with additional levels based on more advanced references. We employ the same methodology, meaning the kids work their way through thousands of words by the time they are ready for advanced texts or tests. And, we create a Lexile Level word list for each child to be sure we’re covering what that child needs.
Bottom Line
If you’re interested in learning more about the KW Word Work program, please contact us. Include your child’s current grade so we can provide the proper information. Mention this post and receive a code for the Children’s Thesaurus and word-oriented “stuff” if you decide to enroll.
~ gina
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