Monday, February 15, 2010

Categories




Categories or Classifying are important for language development. A category is a group of words that "fit together". Some examples of categories are-Fruit, Veggies, Drinks, Furniture, Vehicles, Writing utensils, toys, etc. They help to teach a child more about the meaning of words and allow a child to show that they understand words more if they can put them into a category. It gives them a "schema" to put vocabulary in. A way to organize all the vocabulary in their brain, put the words into little compartments to be able to grab out when they need them:) Like if they want to name an item of furniture, they can first think about the furniture they know, like desk, chair, table, etc and then it is easier to be able to grab the word they want and label the item. Categories are a great way to work on vocabulary growth.
This game is a fun one for category work, I got it at Lakeshore Learning Store (I LOVE that store! they have tons of fun language games if you have one near you!). Kayden loves this puzzle/game. We play it by me saying "let's do the vehicles category" and then we find the 3 vehicles and talk about what each one does and why they are all vehicles. And then we go on to the next category, I help as needed if he requests. We started this game when he turned 2, it says 3+ on the box but he was able to do it w/ a little assistance at 2.

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