Building a rich vocabulary requires a child to read widely and consistently. While this is the dream of most parents, reality can be somewhat different. So, how can we help children improve in the Vocabulary section of Paper 2? When P4 students move on to P5, they are not only faced with higher order Vocabulary MCQ questions but also Vocabulary Cloze, which expects them to pick the best possible answer out of all the similar choices.
Therefore, in Term 4, we have been giving our P4 students a taste of what is to come in P5. Our P4s were given a Vocabulary list weekly in Terms 1 & 2.
In term 3, we created Vocabulary lists with more challenging words and MCQ exercises to get them to practise choosing the best possible answer to each question and learning the meaning of new words along the way.
Such Vocabulary lists and exercises are easy to create at home as well. All you need is a Vocabulary assessment book or a set of P5 Top school papers and a dictionary. Asking your child to make a sentence with each word on the list before attempting the exercises is a good way to also check if he or she has understood the meaning of the word.
Below is an example of what our P4 TF teachers worked on in Week 3 of August.
Example of our weekly P4 vocabulary list & exercises
P4 Vocabulary exercise
1. Mr Lee has _______________ a great fortune selling timber to factories in Indonesia and Malaysia.
gathered
amassed
contracted
accounted
2. The feud between the two families ended when the two brothers decided to _______________ and let bygones be bygones.
face the music
kick the bucket
bury the hatchet
throw in the towel
3. Mrs Tan tried to ________________ some humour into her talk when she noticed some participants fidgeting and looking bored.
input
insert
inject
induce
4. Mrs Lim is very unpopular among her friends as she likes to ________________ her wealth.
flaunt
parade
manifest
brandish
5. “I do not want to _______________ any details of the meeting until further notice,” said the Principal at the briefing.
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