A Clever Way To Help Children Learn To Love New Words

Make it fun for young readers to build their vocabularies

Young children often fixate on a word they’ve learned, delighting in using it over and over. How can you help them retain a love of new words after their infatuation the latest has faded? The award-winning picture book Max’s Words offers a clue.

Max decides to “collect” words, cutting them out of newspapers and magazines, after his brothers won’t share their stamps and coins with him. This premise is rich in possibilities, and in 32 pages, author Kate Banks and illustrator Boris Kulikov make the most of it.

Max discovers that when he puts his words together, he can make a story. This leads to a story-within-a-story, about “a big mean green crocodile” that wants to eat a small brown worm. Without becoming preachy, Banks’ text makes a case for the unique power of words: “When Benjamin put his stamps together, he had just a bunch of stamps. When Karl put his coins together, he had just a pile of money. But when Max put his words together, he had a thought.”

Like all good picture-book images, Kulikov’s whimsical illustrations at once reflect and elevate the story. When Max snips the words alligator and crocodile out of a newspaper, we see his scattered cut-outs forming the upper and lower jaws of a reptile.

You can add to the fun of learning words by encouraging your child to start a word “collection” like Max’s. Help her write her favorite words on index cards and put them in her treasure box, or punch holes in the cards and display them on a string. Or jot the words down on stickers and let her pick and wear a word of the day.

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