language tips

Our Ten Tips on Language for Little Ones
By Alexandra Tornek and Scott Tornek

One of the most exciting developmental milestones for children is learning their first words. Here are some fun tips to consider as your baby explores the world of language:

1. Talk during activities
Even the most mundane activities, like changing baby's diaper, offer great opportunities for introducing language. Simply describing aloud to your baby what you are doing is beneficial for language development. For example: "Let's change your diaper now. Here is your diaper. Let's open it up..."

2. Understanding language before speaking
Babies understand what you are saying way before they are able to utter their first word. In other words, your baby knows more than you think!

3. Motherese
Babies respond to the natural, higher pitched, sing-song cadence of a mother's voice, called Motherese, over the way we normally talk to each other as adults. Interestingly, many attribute this to the attraction babies have to certain types of classical music.

4. Repetition
Babies learn through repetition. In fact, your baby remembers the sounds of words long before they understand the meaning of those words!

5. Categories of words
Babies learn basic-level nouns that represent a class of objects before they learn subordinate nouns that have specific granularity. For instance, they will learn "Dog" before they learn "Poodle."

6. Labeling things
Studies have shown that moms who use words as labels, e.g., pointing to a table, then saying, "Table. Look at the table," versus saying simply, "Look at the table," tend to have babies with bigger vocabularies.

7. Reading stories
It is never too early to start reading to your baby. They will benefit from this experience on many levels, not only with language development but also in bonding with you.

8. Repeat in different contexts
Words need context in order to be understood. Babies learn from hearing the same words used in different contexts or situations. In other words, a flower is a flower, whether it is blue or yellow, and whether it is in the ground, or in a vase.

9. Foreign language acquisition
For those families who want to introduce a second (foreign) language to their baby, having one parent consistently speak only in this language is preferred to having both parents switch constantly between two languages.

10. Activities that introduce words
It is fun to create activities based around words. Any household item will do, or take a stroller ride and stop to smell the flowers!