New Monic Vocab Cartoons (Crew Review)

Today I am bringing you a review of a product that is very unique compared to anything else I have come across for learning vocabulary. New Monic’s Vocabulary Cartoons promise that your child will “learn a word a minute and never forget it”, all while enjoying the process!

The Elementary version of this book (the one I was sent to review) is geared for 3rd through 6th grades and contains mnemonic cartoons to help your child retain the meanings of over 200 oft-used words (complete word list found here). The cartoons are fun and easy to remember, and will easily serve the purpose of painting a permanent picture in your child’s head of each word’s meaning. Take a look at this sample cartoon, and you will see what I mean…

You can view more samples here

This book puts these words in a very easy to learn format that would be especially helpful for the visual learner. Each page shows the word, part of speech, definition, pronunciation, a clue word (that sounds similar to the new word), a fun picture, a sentence, and 3 examples using the word. There are also review pages sprinkled throughout the book (one every 10 words) with matching and fill-in-the-blank questions (the answer key can be found in the back of the book).

The book can be purchased directly from the publisher here for $12.95. They also offer vocabulary building titles geared for high-schoolers preparing to take the SAT.

I chose to let my 10yo son try this product out. He rather enjoyed the fun way the new words were presented, and seemed to retain them better then he typically does using our usual methods of learning new vocabulary. For the two weeks we used the book, it was the very first task he chose to complete every day, which had definitely never happened before with a vocabulary study. We did not make use of the review pages included in the book, but instead we did oral quizzing to see how many words he could remember. Sometimes I covered up everything on a page except the cartoon, other times I would give him the clue word and the meaning, and he would tell me the correct vocabulary word. He did well with this method and only had a few words that really gave him trouble. We plan on continuing to use the book throughout the school year, during weeks where we don’t have enough time for our usual vocabulary studies as a fun break from the ordinary.

Overall, we enjoyed trying out this fun and different book. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants their elementary aged child to expand their vocabulary. I can also see how it would be a beneficial book to help prepare your children for standardized testing (if you are required to do so). It is definitely worth the price and easy to incorporate into your days as it only takes about 10 minutes max to learn a few new words!

DISCLAIMER: This item was provided free for review purposes through the TOS Homeschool Crew.  I received no other compensation, and this review is our honest opinion.  Click the TOS Homeschool Crew banner above to read more reviews on this and other products by other Crew members.