I wish I could take credit for this great idea, but I heard it from Marguerite Vasconcellos, M.S., CED, LSLS Cert. AVT, at a presentation she gave earlier this year.
Help your child keep building their speech and language skills over the summer with the “100 Words of Summer” challenge! Your goal is to teach your child 100 new words by the time school starts again in the Fall. Sit down and write out at least 100 words your child does not know and needs to learn, then talk, talk, talk and cross them off of the list. Some ideas to get you started:
Going on a road trip? Learn parts of the car, direction words, map-reading words, words you use at the gas station, rest stop, etc.
Going on vacation? Get books about the place you plan to visit and learn vocabulary related to your destination.
Learn synonyms for the words your child already knows — what are other ways to say “I’m hot” or “This is fun”?
Learn transportation words, words about buying a ticket, passports, etc.
Beach and pool words — these are especially important to teach, because children will have to remove their hearing equipment to get in the water. Use picture books to talk about these experiences while your child has their “ears” on so they don’t miss out on this crucial vocabulary.
You have about 12 weeks to learn 100 new words. Can you do it? Absolutely! But you have to get busy. Remember, the more words a child knows by the age of 5 is positively correlated with their reading abilities later on in school!
Elizabeth A. Rosenzweig 