Comments on: Cary Grant’s Secret or How to develop children’s vocabulary for free!

By: Patricia Blakey Lodge

Patricia Blakey Lodge — Mon, 06 May 2013 10:59:50 +0000

Dear Michael, I very much enjoyed attending your evening The Quiet Child, and look forward to receiving more of your posts.
I, too, have 3-4yo boys remonstrating with me that they’re not wearing knickers, but pants – they are outraged for some reason at the idea of enlarging their vocab and some state that knickers are only for girls. Not on my watch, they’re not. Incidentally, a few weeks ago I found a jumper for a 4yo to wear as his mother hadn’t brought one in for him and it was a bit nippy outside. Knitted and striped blue and cream, it was rejected by her with “He’s not wearing a girl’s top!”
We have “Muddy Trousers” for wearing in the garden when needed, and if all the blue ones are being worn, the rest of the boys (we have c.80% boys) are left with the pink ones (50%). Our owner bought them like this to encourage the children to try to disassociate colours with strict gender preferences. Most of our girls come in most days dressed head to toe in pink, including socks and underwear, while the boys are always very triumphant to tell us that they have Ben10 underwear and Batman t-shirts, say, on. Sigh. Small children are doing their best to find out about the world and fit into it; is it really helpful to commodify, colour-sort, and divide them like this when they are going to swallow it all wholesale?

By: Steve Grocott

Steve Grocott — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 09:46:56 +0000

Absolutely Michael. So much learning is to do with refinement as you describe.
On Cary Grant and language you will remember how he replied to an impertinent telegram ‘How old Cary Grant ?’ with ‘Old Cary Grant fine – how you ?’

By: John Rice

John Rice — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 09:20:19 +0000

Ah Michael, you’re preaching to the converted I’m afraid. I well remember a child arriving in the reception class with hardly any speech. At home he simply pointed at the things he wanted and he was given them. The BVPS (is that still going?) indicated a vocabulary of a two year old.

My other recollection is of a Y3 child showing me a mark on his arm. I sympathised with him: “That’s a nasty bruise.”

“What’s a bruise?” he asked.
“The mark on your arm, it’s a bruise.”
“No it’s not,” he laughed, “it’s a poorly.”

To this eight year old, bruises, scrapes, grazes and presumably dislocations, breaks and a whole range of mangled (and potentially severed) limbs were ‘poorlies’.

The enrichment of vocabulary is a vital aspect of education and it needs to continue far beyond the Early Years setting.

By: Harriet

Harriet — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 08:36:47 +0000

PS What a very practical man Cary Grant was!

By: Harriet

Harriet — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 08:35:47 +0000

Interesting….I have been “told off” in the past for including words in my childrens’ songs that the children won’t know….but how can they learn them if we don’t use them?