Toddler Talking – how can you help to get your tot’s tongue wagging?
Toddler Talking
Talking doesn’t start with the first ‘mama’ or ‘dada’ your child utters but from the moment they’re born.
The first step is learning to distinguish sounds – a baby can tell their mother’s voice from others by the time they are just a week old. By two months, they are cooing, by three months they focus on you when you talk to them, and by four to six months they are practically having a conversation with you, even if it is in babble-speak.
All of these may seem like little more than cute little moments, but they’re actually milestones in your tot’s toddler talking language development. It’s now recognised how vital the years from birth to three are in terms of how your child learns to talk and communicate, and how they develop as they get older. Assuming that they’ll pick it up at nursery or even school, is leaving it too late.
So how can you help to get your tot’s tongue wagging?
Keep talking. Your toddler may not say much yet, but they understand what you’re saying. Talking starts with listening so the more you talk to them, the faster they will learn to talk themselves. Talk about what you’re doing all the time, and state the obvious, for example, ‘We’re going up to have a bath now, then get you into your pyjamas and ready for a story. We could read the lovely book grandma bought you. Look, here it is on the blue bookshelf’.
Words and music. Read to your tot every day to get them used to books and the words on the pages. Little kids love singing and don’t care if you’re tone deaf, so play nursery rhyme tapes and sing along with them together – they’re a brilliant way of getting kids to learn and remember words.
Speak directly to your child and listen to them attentively without trying to finish off his sentences for them.
Even if you don’t understand exactly what they are saying, the chances are their body language or facial expressions will give the game away, so talk to them as if you do, ‘Have you had enough of the bricks? Do you want to play with the trains instead?’.
Toddler Talking Continued
Spoken moments
Language development can vary widely from child to child, but here are some of the key stages:
* By one year, your toddler will understand what you’re saying and may have a couple of words to say by themselves.
* By 15 months your toddler will have up to 10 words and will understand a simple command like ‘Get the ball’.
* By 18 months, your toddler will know the names of the most important people in their life and will be able to follow more complex commands, ‘Pick up the ball and give it to daddy’.
* By 24 months, your toddler will have up to 100 words in their vocabulary and will be able to form simple sentences, ‘Get ball’, ‘Mummy come’, and say ‘no’ and ‘mine’ a lot.
* By three years, your toddler have about 300 words and will be able to have a conversation of a few sentences and use adjectives and prepositions ‘up, on, in, under’ etc.
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