We are all constantly learning new words. But some of us pick up more words over the years than others.
Our vocabulary range has a big impact on our everyday life. Being more eloquent can allow us to express ourselves in more detail. It can help us to come across smarter and join more intelligent conversations. And it can also help us to become better readers and to engage with more challenging texts.
Overall, it’s good to have a large vocabulary. But what is the best way to learn new words?
It depends on your age. Generally, young kids need to rely on encouragement from their parents in order to learn more words. The younger you start actively building your child’s vocabulary, the greater a headstart you can give them as they get older. Below is a guide on how to improve your child’s (and your own) vocabulary by age.
When do kids learn their first words?
Children start picking up on words as early as 6 months. However, most kids won’t say their first word until between 10 and 14 months.
This is usually something simple like ‘mama’ or ‘dada’. Other common first words include ‘hi’, ‘bye’, ‘yeah’, ‘no’, ‘ball’, ‘dog’, ‘milk’, ‘bubble’ and ‘banana’ (often pronounced ‘na-na’).
Vocabulary at 2 years old
By 2 years of age, most kids have built up a vocabulary of 100 to 200 words. Many kids will also be starting to string words together at this age such as ‘all gone’ and ‘daddy bye bye’.
If your little one hasn’t uttered any words by this age or is only saying a few words, it could be worth consulting a doctor. Some kids are slower to develop speech, but may just need a push. In other cases, medical conditions such as partial deafness or autism could be the cause and can be treated/managed.
How to help your 2 year old expand their vocabulary
There are a few ways you can help a 2 year old to expand their vocabulary:
Read to your kids
It’s never too early to start reading to kids. In fact, experts suggest reading to kids from newborn age (or even when they’re in the womb). If you decide to start at 2 years of age, that’s early enough to build a familiarity with reading. Books can help you to introduce new words to your little one. At this age, most kids won’t have much patience, so a few pages may be all you can get away with. Making storytelling theatrical and pointing at images will help keep kids engaged.
Point and explain
A simple way to help 2 years olds learn new words is to point at objects and explain what they are. Young kids are often visual learners and will gradually associate images with words if you keep pointing and explaining. They may even start to point at these objects and tell you what they are.
Use hand gestures
Hand gestures are great for helping kids to remember words. It’s why many kids quickly pick up words like ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ because we often wave as we say them. Other gestures such as holding out your empty palms while saying ‘all gone’, nodding your head while saying ‘good’ or holding your nose while saying ‘yuck’ could also train kids to say these words.
Sing/play nursery rhymes
Nursery rhymes can also help kids to learn words and phrases by memorising them to a melody. The likes of Cocomelon are great for introducing kids to new words and phrases through nursery rhymes. There may even be songs you can come up with yourself to help kids memorise words and phrases.
Vocabulary at 3 years old
Most 3 year olds know about 1000 words, and may actively use up to 500 of these words. By this point, kids are generally able to form simple sentences.
This is when you can start to have conversations with your little one. These conversations may be very basic, but are important.
How to help your 3 year old expand their vocabulary
Along with continuing to do all the same things you would with a 2 year old, you can start adopting some of these strategies at 3 years old to help expand your child’s vocabulary:
Introduce words through pretend play
Pretend play can be a fun opportunity to introduce new words and phrases. Use toys and actions to help kids understand concepts like ‘driving a car’ or ‘swimming’. If kids start repeating these words back to you, you know that it’s got through.
Introduce words through new experiences
Kids can more easily learn words by linking them to memories of new experiences. For example, going to a zoo and seeing a giraffe may help kids to remember the word ‘giraffe’, while building a sandcastle at the beach may help kids remember the word ‘sandcastle’.
Ask your child questions
Kids are able to start asking and answering questions at this age. Asking questions can help to improve your little one’s ability to recall certain words and encourage them to use these words in conversation.
Help your child identify letters
Past the age of 3, you can start introducing kids to letters and their sounds. This will help your child to pick up reading at a faster rate. There are many ways to introduce kids to letters from letter puzzles to electronic toys.
Vocabulary at 5 years old
Some studies suggest that 5 year olds may understand as many as 10,000 words. However, only about 2,200 to 2,500 are used in conversation.
Turning 5 is a pivotal year as it’s when most kids start to learn to read and write. This helps to massively boost independent language learning.
How to help your 5 year old expand their vocabulary
A few things you can do to help your 5 year old become more eloquent are included below:
Encourage kids to read themselves
Until this point, you’ve likely been reading to your kids. Once kids start learning to read at school, you can start encouraging them to read words and sentences to you from books that you would usually read to them. This doesn’t mean you can’t still read to your kids – however, it’s worth occasionally challenging them to read to you. On top of learning new words, this will help kids identify how words are spelt.
Watch TV shows with captions
Kids will learn a lot of words through TV. Using captions can help kids to not just learn how these words sound, but how they are spelt. This can encourage your kids to identify these words when reading.
Explore word games for young kids
There are a few different word games for young kids that you can start trying at 5 years old. Hangman is a traditional popular example. Kids can also start completing word searches at this age.
Encourage kids to write stories/keep a diary
Writing is another great way to improve kids’ vocabulary. Help kids to write short stories or keep short diary entries, helping them to identify and spell words. Allow them to draw pictures with these stories and diary entries.
Vocabulary at 10 years old
By 10 years of age, your child should know about 20,000 words. How many of these words your child uses may vary depending on how social they are and who they talk to.
Your child will be learning a lot of new words independently at this age – including some new slang terms that you may not even know! This is the peak of your child’s language learning and should be a time that is nurtured.
How to help your 10 year old expand their vocabulary
There are a few things you can do to help your 10 year old learn more words:
Play Scrabble
Kids can usually start playing Scrabble from the age of 8 and up. This game encourages everyone to form words using tiles and could introduce your kids to new words.
Explore educational games
There are many educational games aimed at kids that can improve their general knowledge and help them learn new words. Kids may enjoy quizzes at this age and even word game apps.
Let kids choose books to read
Reading is still important at this age. To help kids develop a passion for reading, allow them to choose the books they want to read. Even comic books and graphic novels can be great tools for learning new vocabulary.
Engage in debates with your kids
At 10 years old, kids can start debating topics with you. Argue topics like ‘should animals be kept in zoos?’ or ‘should homework be banned?’. Debates encourage kids to use new words to better explain themselves and could also help to introduce them to new words, while improving their constructive argument building skills.
Vocabulary in adulthood
Many of us continue learning new words at a fast rate until the age of about 20 when this slows down drastically. The average 20-year-old is believed to know about 42,000 words, while actively using about 20,000 of these.
The Oxford Dictionary currently contains just over 170,000 words. This means that the average person goes through life knowing just 25% of the English language.
Of course, those who actively learn vocabulary from a young age and keep learning new words can develop a vocabulary of as much as 100,000 words by the end of their life.
How to expand your vocabulary as an adult
There are many ways to keep expanding your vocabulary in adulthood:
Don’t stop reading
Too many adults stop reading once they get out of school. Challenge yourself to pick up a book and complete it. If you don’t have the patience for books, try to make a daily habit of reading news articles and blog posts. These texts will help you to build up your vocabulary.
Discover a new word per day
One straightforward way to learn new vocabulary is to open a dictionary every day and pick out a new word. Alternatively, you can follow social media accounts that post a ‘word of the day’ to help you learn new vocabulary.
Solve word puzzles
Word puzzles such as a crossword can be a very fun way to learn new words. Other online puzzle games like Wordle and Wordscapes can also be great for this. Not only will they expand your vocabulary, but they can also boost your memory and problem solving skills.
Expand your niche knowledge
Challenging yourself to learn more about niche subjects is a great way to learn niche terminology. Consider niche subjects you’re fascinated in but know little about, and then seek out YouTube documentaries and blog articles and podcasts and books.
