Captive Reading Ideas: Dictionary Definitions

My eldest daughter having grown a little disinterested in the captive reading I put up with chalk-markers on our bathroom mirror, I had to put it aside for several months.

I have now resumed with brand new chalk-markers as the old ones had began to dry up and their attractive bright colours had faded; but also with a brand new idea… 🙂

As probably a lot of her bilingual peers, my eldest has a less dense vocabulary.  I came to realise that through her school report but also as she increasingly asks questions on words she does not understand.  She sometimes surprises me with questions I thought she already knew the answer to.

So I got the idea of writing everyday on our bathroom mirror a new word and its definition from my daughter’s children’s dictionary.

Over time, I have completed the definition with:

1. An example she can relate to, such as “(cousin’s name) is Daddy’s nephew” to illustrate the word “nephew”.
2. The Spanish translation of that word.

The experience has been very interesting.  She liked learning something from her dictionary.  She has a curious mind and a thirst to know things.  Hence, this new idea seems to have been met with success for now.

The other day, as she was washing her hands with her dad, I heard her discuss the word with him, and her dad using the Spanish word and its personalised example.