Language learning is an ongoing process that occurs all day long during everyday activities and especially during play. When you get at your child's level and "play", you're enhancing language and communication skills in a very indirect kind of way. Even when your child is an infant and you play little repetitive and imitative games with her you are enhancing her communication skills. I found an article on TalkAboutSpeech.com that describes this kind of interaction very well.
With a child who is developing language more slowly than his peers there are some things you want to keep in mind during your playtime with him.
More on Learning Language Through Play
This is an incredible story of a 17 month old baby who can read! This first aired on March 10th on the Today Show. Signing Time family Katy & Michael Barrett shared their experience with their daughter, Elizabeth, learning to read when she was just 13-months old. They contribute a large part of this to introducing her at a very young age to Signing Time. Both parents are speech/language pathologists and started teaching her sign language along with spoken language when she was very young.
What is Signing Time? Check it out for yourself!
They, like most parents, read to her often (but never taught her how to read). The only television she watches is a Signing Time DVD which teaches kids sign language. Sign language is of course a visual language system and I think the act of learning sign language must enhance an individuals visual perception and visual memory skills. These skills are necessary for reading. I completely agree with Katy and Michael Barret that there must be a coorelation between their daughter being taught sign language by her parents and by watching these Signing Time DVD's from a very young age to her extraordinary reading abilities at only 17 months old!
Check out this Video!!
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Many of these tips to encourage language development and help your child learn new words are are things that we all do everyday without really thinking about it. So use this list to re-assure yourself that you are stimulating your child's language development already and perhaps you will find some tips on this list that you are not doing but that you can incorporate in your daily routine with your child.
- Repetition is very important when you are trying to get your child to learn a new word. Think about learning a foreign language - the more we hear a word and the more we hear in in context, the better we will remember it's meaning. It's the same with a child's language development. It may be necessary for a child to hear a word many times before they will understand it and try to say it themselves.
More on Tips To Help Your Child Learn New Words
