Tips To Help Your Child Learn New Words

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.
  
• Teach words in their natural situations.  When you're at the park and see a dog say the word "dog" or "doggie" along with "doggie barks" and "big doggie" or "little doggie", etc.
• Use gestures along with simple words to better teach the words, such as waving hands for "bye-bye" or holding out your hand for "give me".
• Talk about what your child is doing using action words within small phrases (i.e, "blowing bubbles" or "you're blowing bubbles", "rolling ball" or "you're rolling a ball", "eating cheese" or "you're eating cheese", etc.
• Try hard to reduce questions during your child's play. So instead of "are you rolling a ball?" or "what are you doing?",  just state the fact instead and say "you are rolling a ball". Especially for the child who is developing language a little slower, asking questions can create stress especially if your child doesn't know that word. He will be more inclined to imitate your words if state what he is doing rather than pose a question about what he is doing.
• Talk about what you are doing in the same way - using short phrases to state what you are doing and don't ask questions.
• Respond to your child's words and requests as immediately as you can. If your child hold up his empty cup and says "more" and then receives more he discovers that using words get him results.
• Expand your child's utterances with using nouns and verbs and adjectives, i.e, child says "more" parent says "more juice" - child says "ball" parent says "roll ball" - child says "truck" parent says "blue truck" or "big truck".
• During play, follow your child's lead because he will be more likely to pay attention and repeat a word if he is interested in it.
• Use meaningful situations to develop language learning because again your child will pay attention better and more likely imitate if he needs it or wants something.
• Encourage your child to use words like "help" and "more" and don't always anticipate this need.
• Help your child become aware of sounds in his environment like "beep-beep" or motor sounds for cars and trucks, siren sounds for fire trucks, and of course animal sounds for animals in their environment.
• Read, read, read. Books are a fantastic way to encourage language learning and learning of new words.

Here are some wonderful toys that can be easily used to encourage the learning of new words:

 
Here are some classic books that every child should have and they are all great for encouraging your child to learn new words: