I have been reading the same Berenstain Bear book, New Neighbors for five nights in a row to my two children. If you are not familiar with this story it's about the bear family getting new neighbors. The story talks about a real estate bear putting up a sold sign on the house next door. Well tonight it finally dawned on me, do my kids know what a real estate person is, or bear in this case. Well I paused my reading and asked if they knew what one was and sure enough they had no clue. So I took a moment to explain that a real estate person was someone who sells houses. I compared it to them selling lemon aid (which is something they have been dying to do). I also took the opportunity to talk about how they can figure out what the word means by thinking about how it is used in the story and looking at the picture of the real estate bear.
Why don't I do this more often? I talk about books with my kids all the time but sometimes I take it for granted that they may not know what all the words mean. We love Fancy Nancy books because the main character teaches us " fancy" words.
So tonight I am setting a goal for myself. A goal to talk more about vocabulary and a goal to encourage my kids to ask about words that they do not know. I encourage you to join me.
Happy reading!
