If parents spend the first year of their child’s life worrying mostly about motor development, we devote the second to language. Vast majority of children learn language without a hitch, as humans can’t help but talk, so no child’s gets deprived of this freely available exposure. So, there is no need to worry!! What parents can do to best promote this essential mental skill during the critical brain-building years is something which needs attention. Read on to find few essential points to be kept in mind while nurturing a young child’s language.
1. BEGIN EARLY
Language stimulation should begin at birth. Babies are born primed for language. By definition, the latin “infans” (infants) means – “incapable of speech”. Infants don’t talk, but they come into the world with a specialized brain that can already recognize human speech and immediately start learning the sounds of their mother tongue. So, building this foundation depends entirely on experience, on hearing millions of individual words in these crucial early years. Therefore, Talk, Talk and Talk to your newborn!!!
2. QUANTITY OF LANGUAGE
The more words a child hears, the larger her/his vocabulary will be and the faster it will continue to grow. The important message here is that the, quantity mean the number of words addressed “to the child”. We will not be doing any favors by talking on the phone all day, nor is TV an adequate way to increase young child’s language exposure. A baby can begin to make sense of language only when it refers to something they can directly relate to. Parents should thus talk frequently to their babies keeping in mind, that the words or conversation surrounds their baby’s immediate environment – baby’s actions, feelings, or objects and people they can relate to.
3. QUALITY OF LANGUAGE
Language addressed to young children should be simple, clear and positive. Babies clearly prefer the higher pitch but slower pace of “baby talk”. It is important to avoid spoiling the baby talk, like turning a sentence – “You are the cutest baby in the world” into “ Ju al da cooest baby inna wowud”! Speak clearly when speaking to babies and young children, giving them the cleanest and simplest model of speech possible.
It is easy to say that speech should be at a level your child can understand, but it is not always easy to figure out what the level is. For example; older babies understand much more than they can say, so you need not limit your speech to single words. At every age, we must seek out that happy medium of speaking to our children in away that is largely within their reach of understanding but also stretches them just a bit beyond it.
4. USE LOTS AND LOTS OF REPETITION
By repeating, one benefit among many others which you get is that, repetition makes the speech simple. Children love the predictability that comes from hearing the same story or nursery rhyme over and over again. By repeating the same words, you reinforce specific neural pathways that link sound and meaning in a child’s brain. But do not treat it like a drill, nobody learns when they are bored!
5. MAKE IT A CONVERSATION
No matter what the age, the best way to approach language lessons is as a conversation between you and your child. Conversation requires turn-taking, it not only ensures that your child hears you, but that he/she also gets his/her own chance to practice speaking. For infants, it is important to do this face to face contact. Face to face contact gives them a chance to see as well as hear how words are pronounced. It is known that babies just 4 months old can figure out which mouth movements go with which sounds. So, allowing them to watch you as you speak will aid their own efforts at forming speech sounds.
Responding to your child’s utterances with questions (who, what and why, as opposed to simple yes-no), affirmations, repetitions, or elaborations will encourage him/her to keep talking. With young babies, focus on repeating or imitating their attempts at words. Babies love the sense of control they get from being imitated.
6. LISTEN – not just with ears, but with an alert mind.
Researchers have found that many parents actually miss their baby’s first words, because they are mispronounced and hard to decipher from the rest of their babble. And, without positive feedback, many babies actually stop using words for a few months, attempting few new ones or else going back to pure babbling for several months. The best way to ensure that you don’t miss those first few words is to pay close attention very early on, when your baby firsts starts babbling. Try to figure out which consonants and vowel sounds he/she can say and which he/she omits. Once you are in the habit of good listening, you have a better chance of catching that first ba and being able to reply, “Yes, that is your bottle”.
7. RESIST THE URGE TO CORRECT THEIR SPEECH
One type of feedback that is surprisingly bad is correcting their speech. Specially, when babies are eagerly trying to spit out their first words, speech development may actually be inhibited if parents spend too much effort correcting or questioning their faulty pronunciation, for example,
Baby: Gah.
Mother: What?
Baby: Gah
Mother: Oh car! Say “car”
Even with young children, do not worry about the mistakes. Listen to what they are saying rather than how they are saying. Luckily, little children are expert at emitting their own errors and matching their language to the model of those around them. The best route to good grammar is simply to set a good example in your own speech.
8. MAKE LANGUAGE LESSONS “FUN”
Young children learn best through play, and for babies, this means happy social interactions. All children love music, so your own singing, no matter how off-key, is the best way to use music as a teaching tool.
9. LAST BUT NOT LEAST – DO NOT FORGET THE BOOKS
Simple, bright picture books captivate babies and guarantee that they are focused on precisely the items your words are referring to. Illustrated storybooks help toddlers understand longer sentences. For older preschoolers and beyond, pictureless books teach that words alone can create imagery and encourage them to read more on their own. Above all, keep up your reading in front of them as this would set a powerful example.
10. DIALOGIC READING IS BEST
Studies show that parents do their best teaching while reading to their young children. Two year old whose parents read to them early and often show more advanced language skills, an advantage that seems to last well into the grade school years. Dialogic Reading, which encourages children’s comments, responses, elaborations during story time, has been reported to accelerate two year olds’ language development by as much as nine months! Another way of doing dialogic reading is to use your child’s name in place of some character while reading a story.
No matter what their innate potential, every child can benefit from a more positive language environment – from less TV and more reading and conversation. And this is true for children of all ages. Remember that the critical period for language is most intense until six or seven years, then it declines gradually, all the way through puberty.
Fortunately, it is all so easy: Just talk to your kids!
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