Imagine if society lost all types of communication except speech. No phones, no computers, no television - just conversation face to face, speaker to listener. The art of speaking and true listening is gaining ground in the homeschool, perhaps because of the amount of time family members spend with each other. I have noticed that the sign of a strong family is that members look at each other when talking, giving full attention to the speaker.

There is a push today to improve one’s speaking vocabulary through the use of programs that are advertised as being both time and cost effective: “just twenty minutes a day”, “listen as you sleep”, ?play as you drive?. Not one promotes spending time conversing with others which I’ve discovered is the key to raising both adults’ and children’s vocabulary levels.

Speaking vociferously, the speaker shows that he is actively engaged in the topic at hand, perhaps even being ebullient in his physical actions. The propinquity of the family members means that one’s vocabulary level should be able to ascend to a greater level at a faster rate than by using most programs because such packages are designed to be learned alone rather than when conversing with others. More than one of you readers wonders what on earth I am talking about. Perhaps that’s because I am using the same level of words that our forefathers used regularly. Proper speaking was the rule of the day; slang was not allowed. In fact, children were attended to severely if they used improper grammar.

What does this have to do with education? First of all, teaching a baby to understand and use good vocabulary means repeating yourself until she gains an understanding of what you mean. Then as she grows into toddlerhood, you raise the vocabulary level. This is not something that you do consciously, but it occurs naturally. As the child continues to mature, you continue to raise your level of vocabulary, using correct terminology and specificity. Unfortunately, we tend to get to the point where we use slang terminology rather well and proper grammar rather poorly.

Another aspect of vocabulary is intimacy. As Pastor Ric Ochsner said, ?Intimacy is a very present vulnerability.? Being willing to have an intimate conversation with a child is not easy, but well worth the time and effort because of the results it brings. Your child will grow in his understanding of you and learn how to converse gracefully. My neighbor Arlene is a case in point. She is a natural ‘grammie’, a pied piper in the land of Grammiehood. It is rare to find her without a child talking with her. And my, they enjoy their visits with one another. The the secret of her success with little children is that she talks with them. What’s more, she takes the time to laugh with them, hug them, and share silly stories, songs, and poems with them. While she is talking with the children, she stays at their eye level which usually means that she is sitting down.

I discovered this law of childhood gravity years ago. Simply stated, whatever is tall must get shorter when talking with a child because he appreciates your willingness to be at his actual level, whether it be sitting, kneeling, or bending down. You do not need to use cutesy terms with him, but honesty and clarity. If he doesn’t understand something, he will ask or look confused. Then you can clear up the misconception.

Let’s raise our vocabulary levels for the sake of clarity and understanding because the words we choose affect both children and adults and may even influence their walk with God. "A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." Proverbs 25:11