vocabulary practice activities

[StackOverFlow]

Wow. I got you paying attention to the nitty-gritty details

@pigsys I agree what you said about 'Not all of those synonyms are accurate actually' - in fact there isn't an 'accurate' one because they are 'synonyms'. Only in the right context some of them make more sense than the others.
If you applied a magnifying glass, you can always argue 'how long is a piece of string' to no end.

Most of the missing words does come with variants in tense, not just the 'root' form.

I agree if one is an avid reader all these 'building vocabulary' activities are red herring. But not everyone is an avid reader, not every avid reader collects words along the way and many of the DIY parents didn't start off the vocabulary work until spring term of year 5, which I think is just too late.

I built a corpus (collection of words) of 2000+, each word has 3-5 examples sentences, so more than 10,000 examples sentences from various sources. By putting them into actual use (missing words, jumbled sentences), it offers a less boring, onerous learning experience - topic in these examples covers many things that suits children.

For the booklets available on the market, non of them does this, or have near enough close/jumbled sentence style exercises

Just last week, I am able to make a theme based on words from Hair Maclary's for younger students and Alex Rider for KS2. I see it as arouse interests for those who have or haven't read them.

In the future we will index, search, reverse search words and sample usage from publications, classic literatures etc.

I am looking for proof-readers on data governance, pm me if you are interested. @Sally-Anne @pigsys

[squareofthewicket]

The moral of the story is that if you create DIY materials, it is best to ask someone else to proof-read them if possible, and they really should be a native English speaker.

In my 20 years of working life, the one thing I have consistently seen is that non-native (if there is such a word) English speakers would shame the Graduate native English speakers, when it comes to writing grammatically correct English.

You are comparing people who are on this forum with the average graduate English speaker. These are not the same beasts; at least not that I can see.

[Sally-Anne]

It is kind of you to invite me to proof-read your materials, but I'm afraid I must decline.

If forum members wish to obtain a good resource for vocabulary and missing words, much of the text being based on classic literature, I can wholeheartedly recommend the two books in this series:
https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/shop/ ... 84868.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Although they are published by our own website (in which I have no financial interest), I can vouch for them personally. They were written by a Professor of English at a highly respected British university, and I was asked to proof-read them earlier this year. Even the "highly respected Professor" made some simple mistakes and omissions, and beyond that I have no doubt that the two of us could have argued for many hours over semantics, had we ever met!

However, I believe that the finished articles are of good quality. Each one-page exercise includes a comprehension passage, many of them drawn from the classics, with five key words of vocabulary in bold. There then follow two sets of questions: the first asks the reader to find the missing word from the comprehension to fit the sentence; the second set provides synonyms for the missing word, and the reader must find the appropriate word from the vocabulary list.

Before you embark upon publishing anything, stackoverflow, I recommend that you research what the market already has to offer.

Having said all of that, I do not believe that learning vocabulary through this sort of workbook (no matter how good) is an inspiring exercise for children.

It is far better to encourage them to read widely, to enjoy doing so, and to develop a real curiosity about the meaning of words. An electronic dictionary/thesaurus is an invaluable aid to doing that.

[yoyo123]

Can I add playing Scrabble, but using a dictionary? It really makes the children look for obscure words. There are also some good online games, Sally-Anne has recommended Free Rice many times before.

[StackOverFlow]

Thanks for the pointer. We used a few FPTP booklets with DS1 but not this new one. I shall pick up a copy with interests.

I like the idea of learning words by context, put them to use to learn, rather than old dry ways. I observe my DS's making very dry sentences at the start. It is just normal cognitive behaviour, hence I have the idea of creating large collection of missing words exercises by example sentences. Putting the words into context. And each sentence is a short new context.

Read is the key to success, I totally agree.

My next phrase of work is to encouraging reading and recall what have been read by quiz style fun games and deliver via mobile app, chatbot or Alexia. Such like:
user - 'Alexia, challenge me.'
Alexia - 'Which book is the word 'avarice' appeared?
user -"..."
Alexia - 'That is correct. In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - One day Tom was in the act of dosing the crack when his aunt’s yellow cat came along, purring, eying the teaspoon avariciously, and begging for a taste.'

[piggys]

I admire your dedication stackoverflow- I am afraid I too must decline your offer, kind though it is.

Squareofthewicket - I am a little alarmed at your sweeping generalisation regarding 'non-native English speakers' and 'graduate native English speakers'. I am in the latter group and my grammar and grasp of the finer nuances of the English language is pretty good. Perhaps you have only worked with those of us who are ...ahem...less able.

[kenyancowgirl]

user - 'Alexia, challenge me.'
Alexia - 'Which book is the word 'avarice' appeared?

I'm guessing that Alexia (Alexa?) could do with some 11+ grammar tutoring, too...!

[nyr]

I have no doubt that material written, edited and proofread by masters of the craft will almost certainly be of a much higher quality than something cobbled together by most parents but I am quite uncomfortable with the rarely questioned assertions of the advantages of native speakers in educational contexts, as individuals make all the difference.

DD benefitted enormously from the guidance of her young, energetic, committed and highly educated Y4 teacher. Unfortunately this teacher was from a southeastern European country which meant that many parents, who would espouse liberal and tolerant values, were frequently knocking on the headteacher's door, complaining about the difficulties their children were experiencing and hinted towards problems with the class teacher's accent and command of the language. I spoke to the teacher at the end of DD's Y4 and she told me she was going home as she knew she would struggle to be accepted here. A loss to UK children.

On the other hand, DD's Y3 teacher was very definitely a native English speaker who effortlessly commanded the parents' confidence but had little understanding of grammar, couldn't spell simple words such as February - DD pointed out the misspelling and he had to check in his diary as he still wasn't sure - and it's fortunate that this thread is focused on literacy, not numeracy.

I'm from a STEM background, English is the fourth language that I learnt, so I'm very far from being an expert, but I know which of these two individuals I would want to teach future generations.

[StackOverFlow]

nyr, it is very good of you to name the white elephant.
I wasn't comfortable by this 'native speaker' assertion. It implies in literacy education 'native speaker good, non-native speaker bad' thing.
The formal accusation is Affinity Bias, it is quite common on public forums but certainly not right.

[kenyancowgirl]

StackOverFlow...to be honest I am very confused with this thread. You started it and when I first read it, I was utterly convinced that you were trying to advertise your wares - your wares being some vocabulary activities - of which you gave some samples. Whilst I admire your effort, several of them have grammatical errors which would be completely out of place - dare I say laughable, if they were published. I see that you have asked people not to ask you to buy them - and I am pleased, for the reasons above. Reading other comments, it is clear that most people agree that even the very "best" English Professors (who are not necessarily English, obviously) make errors that need to be corrected - but certainly they would be corrected, before going to print in any form! The point about English grammar, and the reason it is so difficult for anyone to learn, is that the nuances are so very subtle but, if someone is professing excellence, say in a publication, they do stick out like a sore thumb. By the way, I don't buy the native/non native argument either as I have come across people who speak languages well but write appallingly and vice versa, in many languages!

What are you actually trying to achieve here - I mean on this thread - I see you are asking for proof readers on data governance, but frankly, this is not the forum to look for that - this is an 11+ forum and you are certainly promoting the 11+ work you have done at home, so are you actually trying to drum up trade for your 11+ work? I see you refer to your next phase of work and this is a genuine query as I honestly am puzzled as to what you are trying to say!