Summer is the perfect time to build vocabulary: There are no school assignments. No reason to balk at reading. Nothing future-defining at stake. Except for vocabulary-building, so that your child can read and write the materials required as they advance in school and their career.
Concept Words
We’re big on this mode of vocabulary-building. We start with the word for a concept the kids already know, then ask them how to express degrees of that concept. For instance: HOT. They typically say, “Very hot; very, very hot; a little bit hot …” That’s fine, but we know there are words that mean very hot, a little bit hot, etc. More than that, many pieces of writing use those synonyms rather than writing very, very hot, etc. It matters because if a book talks about scalding water and your child has no idea what scalding means, they are left to miss the impact of the sentence or hope for context clues.
Make the Summer Count
It’s summer. For most of us, dedicating 10 minutes a day during a carpool, or sitting at the beach, or eating pizza together is not that big a stretch. (At least it’s not as big a stretch as during the school year.)
Telling a Lie-Related
Truth – This is straight-up the true story. No deception involved.
Fib – A fib and a lie are pretty close. Both are not telling the truth. Generally a fib is not as serious as a lie.
Lie – A lie is not the truth. You flat-out are deceiving someone in an important way.
White lie – A white lie is a lie because it is not the truth. The thing about a white lie is that it’s usually told to spare someone hurt feelings. Like saying you can’t go because you promised to help your mom rather than saying you can’t go because there’s is no way you would possibly consider it. The result is the same. The reason is different.
Whopper – A whopper is to a fib as an elephant is to a flea. When you tell a whopper, you’ve told a lie that is so big and complete that it’s almost impossible to believe.
Excuse– An excuse (x-cuse) can be a white lie. It can also be a legimate reason.
Prevaricate – You’re trying not to tell a lie of any kind, but you’re not ready to tell the truth. To keep from doing that, you stall and take as long as you can to get to the point.
Perjury – You didn’t just tell a lie. You told a lie in court after you took an oath to tell the truth. By doing this, you’ve committed perjury. Not good at all.
Your Turn
Okay. the words we’ve used to describe the concept of telling a lie are:
truth; fib; lie; white lie; whopper; excuse; prevaricate; perjury.
Help your child to put them in order as descriptions of size. Doing this helps them to describe more and less of the concept without using words like very; very, very; more; a little less; a lot less; etc.
When you’re done, drop your answer in the comments!