Vocabulary Building

Building vocabulary is best achieved by reading. Students learn new vocabulary best when it is used in context. So the best advice we can give your children is to maintain good reading habits. What they read definitely matters. If you child is not an avid reader and you would like to gently get them into the habit of reading you might consider starting off with subscribing to the New York Times and have them read the Book Review section. It's actually fun to read and is writen in beautiful English. Now on a more practical side there is some benefit in learning vocabulary by rote. But the only way this will work well is if it is done on a regular basis. There are plenty of good HSPT and ISEE vocabulary lists that have been built inside Quizlet which is an application for the computer and can be downloaded to your smart phone. Vocabulary lists are also available inside our Course Documents folder.