Today, I walked all our girls to a local grocery story which is about a mile from our house. During the walk, I had an interesting conversation with my 5 year old daughter.
"Mommy, I have a stitch in my side," she comments.
I jokingly reply, "Does that mean you are a sewing machine?"
She answers back with, "Stitch means a cramp."
Later in the walk she motions to a long driveway behind an apartment complex and asks, "Mommy, is that an alley? An alley is an little street, right?"
Then she explained how she acquired her new vocabulary words. Because the older girls were such late readers (8 years old and 9 years old), we got into the habit of listening to books on tape. Recently, the older girls have been listening to various books from the Story of the World series by Susan Wise Bauer, as well as Harry Potter books and books from the Redwall series. When the 5 year old hears a word she doesn't know, she asks her older sisters what the word means.
I frequently get comments about my children's vocabulary. We aren't trying to be pretentious. My daughters talk with the words they've heard from audio books. I can sometimes tell when my older daughter learns a new word from a book she has read because her pronunciation is not quite right.
The girls also retain a lot of information from the audio books. We were playing Professor Noggin's American Revolution card game. I lost. Even my 5 year old did better than I did because the 11 year old and 9 year old would signal her or give hints.
All children from homes with a love of learning, whether in public school, private school or homeschool, can have these kinds of experiences. Homeschoolers have the advantage of more time and opportunity.
6 comments:
We're the same. Audio books are a fantastic way to pass on our culture through literature. Our children have a different vocabulary to others too. The big difference is that we all start recognising references to other works.
In many ways I think audio books can at times be superior to just reading a book. It becomes a family activity rather than an individual one.
One more thing - the entire Redwall series is available from audible.com. It can be a lot cheaper buying them this way than individually from a book store.
(This series is narrated by the author and a cast of actors. An excellent series!)
Thanks for the link to the game site. I just bookmarked it. I'm going to show that card game to my kids- it looks like something they may enjoy. :-)
Joanne
A Day in Our Lives
Currently, we don't buy the audio books we listen to. We just check them out from the library. :)
[If I ever break down and buy an audio book, I will check out the link.]
The exceptions are the Susan Wise Bauer audio books. We reuse them enough to justify the expense and our library doesn't have them.
I think audio books give a richer language development. As a child learns to read, the beginner reading materials have a limited vocabulary and sentence structure.
Audio bookds expose the child to a bigger world of language.
We have a half a dozen different Professor Noggins games at home. Sometimes when we hit an answer we don't understand, we go to the internet to get more information.
There are enough True False and pick on of three questions that the younger kids (5 year old) like to play.
I think my 5 year old's favorite Professor Noggins game is Pets, followed closely by Farm Animals.
I'll answer this question in a post.
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