Small steps make a big difference.

Language and literary skills would require us to strengthen our vocabulary.

It could be nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, phrasal verbs, gerunds, collocations, and other forms.

Many of the English words are made up of smaller units: roots, prefixes and suffixes. When you have an idea of the commonly used ones and how to combine them, you can understand hundreds of new and different words.

In the 11 Plus English and Verbal Reasoning tests pupils with strong vocabulary perform better. However, the question is how they can build it. Reading, reading and reading could be three ways of accomplishing it. Of course they have to work hard; however, there are smarter ways which will make it easier for them. One such approach is to learn the meaning of some of the ‘root’ words along with examples. It will help them to associate and relate meanings and in turn remember and retrieve more words, faster and better. For example, if they learn that ‘cred’ relates to ‘believe’, it will be easy for them to learn and remember words like credence, credentials, incredible, credible etc.

Understanding prefixes and suffixes for kids is an important part of learning new words. For example, “un” is a negative prefix which will change the positive word “happy” into “unhappy”. The suffix “ion" added to the verb "act" gives us "action," the noun form of the word.

We should help them invest in their vocabulary bank account. It will pay off well now, and hugely in the future. There are different ways in which we can help them. Let’s not miss the opportunity.