365 Words for Clever Kids, a smart, approachable vocabulary builder

If this is your first visit to the site we have long maintained that children have the ability to be much smarter than they are. Also, welcome to this kidlit corner of the internet, take off your shoes and relax.  By the first statement I mean that if we teach kids as the smart sponge-like vehicles they are and expect more from them, they’ll level up. One aspect of that, as well as, the difficulty and brilliance of the English language is how specific it is. There is a precise word for most anything, that’s one reason why mastering it as a second language is challenging. 365 Words for Clever Kids! is a book whose content fourth and fifth-grade kids need to know. Those fourth-grade kids will know some of the words and fifth-grade kids might know about half of them. However, it will behoove any student in those grades and higher to have been exposed to them.

For example, those nine-year-old kids will know nervous, approve, confident, splashing or luggage. But will those same kids know gusto, sweltering, dismal, nonplussed, or insolent? Certainly, the mastery of using some of those terms differ from simply being introduced to them. Those elementary-aged students won’t master some of them correctly the first couple of times. That’s why introducing them to kids/students as early as possible pays off.

When our 11-year-old saw 365 Words for Clever Kids he immediately said, “this looks kind of like a baby book”. I knew what he meant by that initial observation. The art is by Monika Forsberg and is bright, has rounded characters, and initially looks like something a kid going into middle school wouldn’t be associated with.

Inspired by his statement I urged him to look through the book for a moment. Then I asked him what some of the easier words in the book meant. He was able to zoom through those with ease. “What about stamina, siege, or venerable”, I asked him. He was able to trudge through a rough definition of siege due to his time on Fortnite. I stopped him from defining venerable for fear that he’d apply it to me.

365 Words for Clever Kids has seven words spread out over two pages and goes on for 52 weeks. Holy quick math Batman, that’s a word a day for one year, unless it’s Leap Year. There’s a glossary at the back that lists all of the words alphabetically too. This is a smart book that is not intimidating for young readers.

It softly lays out the vocabulary by using the character’s actions to illustrate the new words. That’s quite a feat considering how technical some of the words are. Pretend you’re playing charades and have to act out ‘alleviate’. That’s a tough word to visualize, but it’s accurately done, in addition to its definition by the artwork.

365 Words is written by Dr. Meredith L. Rowe, a professor of early learning and development at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. It’s a smart book that aims to have middle elementary through early middle school aiming higher and learning more with a bigger vocabulary, without them even realizing it.

365 Words for Clever Kids is by Dr. Meredith L. Rowe with illustrations by Monika Forsberg and available on Magic Cat, an imprint of Abrams Books.

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