Talking to a child many times a day, repeatedly, is a sure way of accelerating the process of his/her language development. If the toddlers hear the same words, phrases and sentences repeatedly over the course of the day many times, these will become part of these active vocabulary and they will soon learn to speak. Similarly, telling them or reading to them the same stories over and over through several days or weeks is another way of boosting their language acquisition ability. This can be done when ever possible from infancy onwards.
There was a time in the past when story books were very rare. So parents used to read the same stories to children repeatedly for many months. Or, grand mothers told the same stories to the children and taught them the same songs and rhymes over many months or years. The children soon learned to speak and repeat what they have heard.
For best results, stories should be told or read to the children from the time when they are two or three months’ age. Pick up a story meant for 2 or 3 years olds. Repeat the stories again and again till they are about two years old. In between teach them some songs or nursery rhymes. Experiments have shown that such toddlers speak much better than their counterparts, and most of them were able to re-tell almost all the stories by them-selves by the time they became two year olds. And their knowledge of nursery rhymes made their later pre-reading skills much better.
Moreover, the vocabulary in the stories got imprinted in the children’s mind and soon they began to use this vocabulary in their speech. It soon became obvious that their vocabulary and ability to express them-selves clearly is far better than other children of their same age. This is an excellent start for the children and it will stand them in good stead in future in terms of language development.
Posted on February 13th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Baby, Child Care, Language Development, Toddler
Leave a Reply