“I goed park!” – why your toddler’s mistakes are more than just cute

As your toddler talks more and more, you probably notice some mistakes – they might say, ‘goed’ not ‘went’ or ‘blowed’ not ‘blew.’ These are adorable, but also show some really important grammatical knowledge, and learning. Here’s why these errors are so great to hear...  

When your toddler makes a mistake, they are showing you that they have noticed a pattern in language.  

Common mistakes your toddler might make 

Plurals – Your toddler understands that adding an s to a word changes it from singular to plural – but hasn’t yet learnt that some words are different. They might say, “Look sheeps!”  

Past tense – Your toddler knows you use -ed to change a verb to past tense, but again there are some words where this isn’t right – they just haven’t learnt about them yet. So, your toddler might say, ‘goed’, or ‘bringed’. 

What to do when your toddler makes a mistake? 

Remember these mistakes are a sign your toddler is learning about patterns in speech, so these errors are a great sign of their development.  

You don’t need to ask your toddler to say the word again correctly, but simply repeat what they said in the right way – this is known as recasting.  

If your toddler says, “I goed park.” Reply with something like, “Oh yes, you went to the park.”  

Keep chatting. Your toddler will learn about the rules of language through everyday chats, so don’t feel you have to stop if your toddler makes an error, just keep talking to them.  

And maybe make a note of some of these adorable phrases, or record a voice note or video, so you can listen back to them in the future – because before you know it these mistakes will be a thing of the past.