Vocabulary Building Tips For Your Child’s 11 Plus Vocabulary Preparation

We at Pass 11 Plus Grammar have found that building your child’s 11 plus exam skills at an early stage is one of the most important tasks in preparation for an 11 plus exam.The verbal reasoning and comprehension exam can be challenging for a child, but if they’ve worked on expanding their vocabulary, they’ll have better confidence to tackle even the hardest of papers.A few of the ways to improve your vocabulary is by holding brainstorming sessions with friends, reading, and writing.

How to help your child improve their 11 plus vocabulary

Get them a notebookWe suggest getting your child a notebook that will last to record unfamiliar words and their meanings in it. Allow them to be curious about words they don’t know and find out what the word means or where it came from.A dictionary is an invaluable resource for this, but children can also cover the pages of their notebook with ones they can’t get enough of from all different genres. Encourage your child to look up these words and learn what they mean to build their 11 plus vocabulary knowledge base.Also buy a children’s dictionaryA children’s dictionary is a great resource to prepare for 11 plus exams. Younger kids might not understand words from an adult dictionary, since they can be difficult to understand and need more explanation.From experience, we have found that oxford Dictionary of English is great because it’s written in a way that kids can easily understand. This is what they need to encourage them to learn and master their 11 plus vocabulary.Encourage them to speak the words they are learningBy trying new words out in speech and writing, they’ll learn how to use them properly and even ace their 11 plus vocabulary session.Don’t over-simplify your languageYour child will learn more when you speak to them at their level and use words they are familiar with. They’ll develop more confidence when it comes to being able to express themselves in conversation and writing. We suggest not making this interaction too simple else your child will not master their 11 plus vocabulary.Hold reading sessions with your childImproving vocabulary skills doesn’t need to be done formally, like with comprehension and VR papers. You can provide your child a rich experience through reading with them. This will encourage their vocabulary and comprehension skills as well as creativity in writing.One of the best ways to improve your child’s vocabulary is to read together. Pick some books they like and try reading a chapter a few nights a week.Take things slow as you prepare your child for their 11 plus exam, and only read one or two chapters at a time. At that pace, you get to guide them through new language, writing styles, and vocabulary.Once you have read your chosen extract with your child, we think it best that you write down the words they didn’t know. Then teach them what those words mean and re-read the passage together.To build on comprehension skills read a story, ask them to summarise it, explain how they felt and express how characters in the excerpt were feeling.The latter is beneficial for children who find it difficult to communicate or understand why a character is behaving in a particular way. You could also point out how punctuation is used and explain grammar when needed.Review and give feedback on your children’s VR practice papersEnsure your child knows the meaning of all words on the page by taking time to go through VR tests and add any new words they struggle with to their word list. When testing them, make sure you pay attention to word pairs like synonyms and antonymes.Make sure they understood the other words in the question. Add these words to flash cards and revise these questions in a few months’ time.Encourage your child to learn words by using flashcardsFlash cards are a great way to learn new English words, build your vocabulary and learn how to use them. They also come with synonyms and antonyms that help you understand the meaning better and show you how they’re used in sentences.We suggest you ask your child to help out by making flashcards for you. They are a fun way to remember word meanings.You could paint or color the flashcards, and use them as a game. This would help with remembering things visually, while also having fun with the whole family. The 11 plus exam revision process can be very isolating, which is why this is a good way to get everyone involved.