Young children’s learning of new vocabulary words is dependent on the range of words they are exposed to. As a preschool teacher, you can facilitate their learning by including them in regular conversations, asking them thoughtful questions and reading with them every day. Here are some tips to further build their vocabulary:
- Use story context clues to promote vocabulary learning
Teaching students to use context clues to figure out word meanings can help guide children to figure out meanings on their own. As you read with your students, have them analyze the pictures with the text to help them understand what the words mean. - Select a new set of words to focus on every week
Because young children have a hard time focusing on multiple things at once, focus on four to five new words each week to not overwhelm them. To take it one step further, display these words on a board in the classroom so they can see them and hear them. - Provide “preschool-friendly” definitions for new words
Your students may not understand long thought-out definitions like you do. Try coming up with simple definitions for the new words you teach. For example, enormous means that something is very, very big.