Most parents can’t wait for their baby to say their first word. This usually happens between nine months and one year. From the age of two, the child should be able to use simple sentences, and by three they should be able to use complete sentences. At four years old, she should be able to speak fully, although she can still make grammatical errors. At five years old, she should have acquired a basic language.
There is no doubt that language acquisition is one of the key milestones in early childhood development. Much of a child’s future social and intellectual development depends on this milestone. A language delay can lead to isolation and withdrawal, as well as learning difficulties and poor academic performance. Recent research has revealed a dramatic link between the development of spoken and written language among children and the importance of language acquisition for basic reading skills.
Many parents believe that the term “language development” implies that a child’s acquisition of language is an automatic process. This, however, is not the case. There is nothing that any human being knows or can do that he has not learned. This is especially true in the case of language acquisition.
The child begins to learn language from the day he is born. From the first moment it is the responsibility of the parents to lay the appropriate foundations that allow the child to acquire the appropriate language skills. Just as parents must ensure that a child eats a healthy, balanced diet for optimal physical development, they must take steps to ensure optimal language development.
HOW LANGUAGE IS ACQUIRED
Parents should start talking to their little baby from the day he is born. Some mothers are quiet and reserved by nature. Others have the unfortunate idea that it is foolish to talk to their babies knowing that they do not understand them. The mother, who does not talk continuously while she feeds, bathes, and dresses her baby, is laying the groundwork for a speech delay.
The baby learns language in only one way, and that is by listening to the language while the parents talk and talk to him. The more a parent can talk to a child, often repeating the same words, the same sentences, the same structures over and over again, the sooner the child will learn the language.
One important thing to note here is that by the time a baby is around nine months old, they should be able to understand simple words and commands. She maybe she can also say some simple words. Invariably, however, one finds that the baby understands much more than she is capable of saying. In fact, this remains the case for any person throughout her life. One is always able to understand more of any language, even her mother tongue, than she is able to use in active speech. This is even more true for any second or third language that a person is capable of speaking.
This shows that we have two more or less separate masses of knowledge of language, our PASSIVE knowledge (also called receptive language) on the one hand, and our ACTIVE (expressive language) on the other. When we listen or read, we use our passive vocabulary, and when we speak or write, we use our active vocabulary.
One important thing to keep in mind here is that the child’s passive vocabulary arose through constant and continuous repetition of words, phrases, or structures. Once a word, phrase, or structure has been repeated often enough, it also becomes part of the baby’s active vocabulary. This shows that the active vocabulary can only be improved through the passive. Research has shown that a newly speaking child must hear a word about 500 times before it becomes part of her active vocabulary. Much sooner it will be part of her passive vocabulary. This means that parents should create as many opportunities as possible where their baby can hear them talk.
THE SECRET OF READING TO YOUR CHILD
Parents should read to their children as often as possible. However, the secret that will lead to optimal language development is reading the SAME stories over and over again.
In the “good old days” there weren’t the abundance of storybooks that there are today. Parents were forced – it was also part of the parenting traditions – to tell them over and over again the few stories they knew, or to read over and over to them the few books they owned. They also spent a lot of time teaching their children rhymes and songs. As I discovered for myself through my own son, this repetition over and over of the same stories and rhymes was extremely beneficial for language acquisition. In fact, I took this tradition to the extreme, exposing my son to just ONE book for nearly two years.
Shortly after my oldest son, Gustav, was born, I bought him a book with the story of Pinocchio. The book was aimed at four-year-olds. Except for talking to him continuously, I started reading this book to him when he was only two or three months old, as often as I could, over and over again. I found this tedious, of course. However, Gustav loved it and the results of this experiment made all my efforts worthwhile. Not only did he start talking much earlier than most children, but by the time he was just over two years old, he could recite almost every page of Pinocchio. Turning to a new page, one only had to read the first word or two on that page and recited the rest of the page like a parrot. In itself, this may seem quite useless, but it was of great importance that the vocabulary of this book soon became part of his everyday speech. In terms of language development, he was soon far ahead of his age group. In fact, to this day, his vocabulary and his ability to speak clearly are astounding.
When a child is a little older, you should start teaching him nursery rhymes. Research has shown that knowledge of nursery rhymes among three-year-olds was a significant predictor of later pre-reading skills, even after children’s IQs and their mothers’ educational levels were skewed.
While an apple a day keeps the doctor away, talking forever makes your child smart!
