Materials: Dictionary, small notebook, pencil, string or yarn

Directions: Most books that you read will have some words that are difficult for children to understand. They may be words that are very important to the story.

Buy a small notebook and attach a pencil to it with string or yarn. Ask your child to keep this notebook beside her while she reads.

When she comes across a word she doesn't know, have her write it down. If it is crucial to the story, help her look the word up in a dictionary right away and write down its meaning. If it can wait, have her continue reading after she has written down the word. Later (but not too much later), she should look up the new words in the dictionary and write down the meanings.

Every once in a while, ask her to take out her reading vocabulary notebook and review all the new words she has learned.

-- "365 Afterschool Activities" by Sheila Ellison and Judith Gray

Pub Date: 03/14/99