Make better vocabulary lists with these three steps!

You could get vocabulary lists from Google, but you’d be excluding your student from an important learning process. Imagine your students so much more invested and responsive. Why? Because you had their input while making a vocabulary list tailored to their specific needs and interests. If that sounds like some extra work for you, then let us do a lot of it. Here’s how to efficiently create the most effective custom vocabulary lists, while still having fun. Peruse our handy (and save-able) infographic — afterwards, we’ll break it down for you with even more tips!

Wondering if there’s more to it? For tips on smoother implementation, we talked to parents of our spelling bee participants who’ve used this vocabulary list strategy to much success in competitions. There’s hardly a better metric for how well these vocabulary lists work to learn terminology, spelling and definitions. So here’s:

Amazing custom vocabulary lists in three (more detailed) steps:

Step 1: Stacking it up!

• Our buzzword for this month is a step up from just lists; “tabulate” means organizing data in columns and rows. You know, like a spreadsheet. That’s the recommended format for collecting your vocabulary for these custom lists; use the vertical columns to accumulate words and the horizontal rows to include additional info about each of the words — but we’ll get to that soon enough.
• A very simple yet impactful thing to do is let the student choose some vocabulary words they’d like defined. Everyone loves personalized. You probably won’t have every word make it onto a final list, but don’t stifle the suggestions. It’s also a chance to feel out the child’s personal skill level and observe what they’re interested in.
• Don’t forget to include unfamiliar vocabulary words you or the child come across naturally. It’s that much more meaningful to figure out how a word relates to the experience you just had. But to pull that off, everyone has to stay on the lookout!
• Here’s an idea: have a weekly or monthly challenge to see how many new words the child has heard from any source, perhaps from their favorite shows, songs, or storybooks. Let them go on a hunt. Incentivize.
• We asked parents if there are types of words that particularly challenge kids and frequently land on the vocabulary list. A common theme was English words borrowing heavily from another language — think “rendezvous”, which copies French, or “incognito”, which hails from Italy. We’ll soon come out with a guide for that too, so stay tuned!
• Don’t limit yourselves to any quantity. Add to the list whenever you want, even every day! At this point, it’s more like a big bank of random words, and the next step is where you withdraw whichever you want. Speaking of…

Step 2: Trimming it well!

• Definitely keep this main repository, but now you’ll want to set aside a reasonable amount into a list to currently study. No need to stuff the list, always keep in mind you’ll get to the other words later.
• So how do you pick between all these interesting words? Look for words that heavily contribute to important contexts. If you got the word from a story, how important was that word regarding understanding what the story was about? In contrast, you may want to skip words that were weird but didn’t really contribute to the overall experience. The most important words will most often appear, across a variety of material, and are crucial to describe important ideas. For example: the words “coincidence”, “therefore”, and “analysis” are super important in academics. Likewise, the words “isotope”, “microscopic”, and “precipitate” are super important to anyone studying chemistry. That leads right into the next tip.
• Try to group the words by a specific theme. Likely a theme related to other things the student is learning or involved in. Don’t forget to consider their personal hobbies and interests. That’s an easy way to get the student emotionally invested, therefore engaged.
• One thing that’s tricky is choosing which words are exactly difficult enough to be a positive learning experience. Stay open, observant and considerate of your student’s self-esteem. Everyone has good days, bad days, and things they don’t understand why they don’t understand. Explain things to your best ability and don’t hesitate to shift the difficulty level whenever needed.

Step 3: Nailing it down!

• Vocabulary and meanings belong side by side. So now that you have a shortlist you plan on reviewing, go word by word and add the definitions and example sentences. Better yet, have the student try to explain the meaning and use it in a sentence. If they’re correct enough, use their definition; it will stay super memorable since they said it themselves. If they’re off-base or simply stumped, try this next tip.
• In your explanations, connect words to familiar things. To improve vocabulary, you can’t understand words as simply collections of letters. You need a good understanding of why a word is important in life. Are you ready to explain how each of your vocabulary list words provides a better context for important concepts in life and study?
• The simplest yet strong tactic: put the list somewhere frequently visible. The more time it’s on your student’s mind, the more easily they’ll remember the information and review if they need to.
• Use word games! There are a million, so pick whichever brings the most fun. Switch it up sometimes, try new games, or make your own. Vocabulary lists translate especially well into crossword puzzles — you can make your own with a crossword generator online. The important thing is simply remembering to review the words often.

You’ve made it this far, so we’ll give you the secret, most important tip: practice makes perfect! Not just for your student, but for you. Don’t worry about executing all of this perfectly straight off the bat; you’ll become more effective each time you put in the effort. Now get started!

🐝 Thanks! You just read Buzzword, where Spelling Bee of Canada spotlights rare words that widen your perspective. For more fun language arts reads and videos, subscribe to Buzz News! This post was written by Fran Mbadiwe, an editor who runs SBOC’s Buzz News. Apart from that, he’s probably journaling.