Researchers have found parents talking to their children for just 15 minutes a day can help improve their vocabulary (and at least an hour helps teach them correct grammar).
This is exciting and easy to do.
Let’s face it, finding 15 mins to speak with your child can happen simply as part of your day to day routine.
Think about the everyday opportunities to share new words with your baby. This could be while you are preparing dinner, shopping for groceries, during playtime or getting ready to go out.
Easy ways include:
*Listing ingredients in tonight’s dinner. Say out loud tonight we are having ‘pumpkin’, for ‘dinner’. Repeat and encourage your baby to try and say ‘pumpkin’. (Even when babies are newborns you should try and speak to your baby using proper words like you would and adult).
I know this is hard especially when they are toddlers and say the adorable ‘naaana’ instead of ‘banana’ – BUT I promise persistence will pay off.
More evidence to support what I feel has become a growing problem over the past 10 years has been brought to light in this article published in the Daily Telegraph on 2nd July 2012.
“Baby talk gaga for learning, after study encourages parents to talk normal with kids ”
- by: Evelyn Yamine
- From: The Daily Telegraph
- July 02, 2012 12:00AM
FORGET the baby talk gibberish – talking to children normally about everyday things for at least an hour a day can help improve their vocabulary and grammar, a new study reveals.
Speech pathologist and lead researcher Dr Deborah James said parents speaking to children was “crucial” to speech and language development.
Dr James and other researchers spent a year researching 2000 children, aged nine months and two, and found their language improved if parents spoke to them daily about everyday activities, sang or read to them.
She said many parents would not really talk to their child throughout the day because they considered it silly as they were not getting a response, but she believes the research demonstrates it is really helping their children.
“Parents are in a powerful position to influence their child’s speech and language development just by talking to them,” Dr James said.
“The children were showing significantly more complex vocabulary than those spoken to for less than 15 minutes. The complexity of the grammar didn’t show a difference until they were spoken to for an hour or more a day.”
Dr James said it was important for parents to talk to their children from when they were born in short, grammatically correct sentences throughout the day, including while changing the nappy, having a bath or playing.
“Talk about what you’re doing and that then enables them to match the language with the activity they’re engaging in,” she said.
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