An exciting milestone in your child’s life and development is when they begin to talk! Those first few words are just the beginning of them learning an entire vocabulary. As a parent, part of your job is to encourage speech development.
Too often, parents compare their toddler’s development to others, especially with social media. Articles may say that your child should be reading so many words by a certain age. Know that all children are different and develop at different paces. However, there are ways to improve your toddler’s speech development if it’s worrying you.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) does provide a research-backed estimate of how many words your child should be saying at a certain age. Toddlers aged 18 months should be able to speak several words. By two years old, children should be able to say sentences containing two to four words. At three years old, most children can carry on a conversation with a few basic sentences.
The CDC doesn’t ever specifically state how many words your child should say per day, so you can take a sigh of relief! You still want to help your child with their speech, though, so here are seven ways to encourage speech development in your toddlers.
1. Pair Words with Movement
Toddlers do well imitating speech when they have a movement to go along with it. That’s why they tend to figure out animal sounds well before they pronounce full words. When you teach them animal sounds, you often make a motion, such as flapping your arms like a chicken.
While you’re playing with your child, use fun action words. For example, when your child jumps, say, jump, jump! When your child is pushing a train around a track, say choo-choo. Continue these action words with each thing they do.
2. Eliminate Distractions
If you’re planning on setting aside specific time to work on speech development, you’ll want to eliminate distractions. Turn off the television and any other background noise if possible. This way, your child can focus on you.
Televisions and toys are often over-stimulating. These can become barriers to your toddler’s comprehension of what you’re saying. Try to keep these distractions at minimum other times of the day and speak to your child when it’s quiet so they can understand and pay attention to you.
3. Point to Items and Name Them
Your child sees and hears new things every day. During your routine with them, point to something you use and voice what it is. Repeat the item three times. It might feel silly, but your child will soon pick up on what those items are that they see or things they do every day.
The more words they hear, the greater their vocabulary becomes. For extra practice, take your toddler to the grocery store and name the items you put in your cart.
4. Repetition
Toddlers need to hear words over and over to learn them. When they hear a new word or you want them to learn a new word, the more you say it, the quicker they will learn it. This is a similar concept for school-aged kids learning a new topic and having a test coming up. The more they read through their notes and repeat the information, the better they’ll remember it.
When you are teaching them a new word, emphasize it. Make it stand out from the rest of the words in a sentence. For example, if you want them to say the word please when they ask for something, emphasize it in a sentence, like Please pick up your toys.
5. Read Simple Books
Choose books for your toddler that have simple photos and few words. Younger toddlers can learn better when looking at books and pictures with one item on the page against a white background. When you point to the item and vocalize it, they know what you’re pointing to.
As your toddlers get older, they can better focus their attention, so you can use books with more photos and words. Still, keep it simple and age-appropriate so they can learn new words and associate items with words.
6. Slow Your Speech
Slow your speech and make it clear when you have a conversation with your toddler. Adults tend to talk fast because they have built up a vocabulary over the years. Toddlers may not yet be able to learn multiple words at once, especially when they can’t keep up with what you’re saying.
Keep your conversations slow, especially when teaching your toddler a new word. They can better understand you and learn how to enunciate words.
7. Get on Their Level
Finally, get on your toddler’s level when you’re having a conversation with them. So many times, you may have a conversation with someone or your toddler, and you’re turned away from them, which isn’t effective communication.
Instead, kneel when you want to talk to your child. When you’re at their level and are face-to-face, your child can better focus on you and what you have to say. This lessens the distractions, too.
Effective Communication for Speech Development
Take these steps to encourage and improve your child’s speech development. Your little one will soon learn and use new words every day to build a strong communication foundation.
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