Keep calm and keep chatting – tips to help your toddler understand and say more

First words are magical. As your toddler learns to say more, they can share more of their thoughts and ideas with you. It can be tempting to look for ways to accelerate this amazing progress and you might be tempted by flashcards, word books or sitting them down and getting them to repeat what you say. STOP – you don’t need to do that – here are some things to think about instead.  

Your toddler is most likely to learn new words with people they love, in situations that are important and interesting to them.^[1]  

Think about what’s important to your toddler 

The first words your toddler learns might be the names of people who are special to them, favourite toys, books, pets or foods.  

Soon, they’ll start to use some verbs – again, these are likely to be linked to their interests. So, keep chatting about the things they like.  

Notice the verbs your toddler understands 

The first step to using any words themselves is understanding the words when other people say them. You will probably notice them understanding more and more each week. 

Show them the verb in action – again and again and again 

Verbs are harder to learn than names – your toddler can’t look at a ‘bring,’ as they can a cat or dog. They need to hear these words many times to link the verb with the action.  

This is where slightly exaggerating the action might help – you probably don’t need to think much about doing this as scientists think adults already exaggerate movements to make meaning clear when they talk to young children.^[2] 

You don’t need flashcards, talking toys or special word books – just time to chat about anything that interests you and your toddler.  

And if you enjoy looking at a word book together then that can be something to chat about – just don’t feel you need to buy one if they love the storybooks you’ve already got. 

References: 

[1] Levine, D., Strother-Garcia, Hirsh-Pasek, K. & Michnick Golinoof, R. (2017) Names for things..and actions and events: Following in the footsteps of Roger Brown. In E.M. Fernadez & H.S. Cairns (Eds.), The handbook of psycholinguists (pp.536-566). Wiley Blackwell.  

[2] Goswami, U.C. (2020) Cognitive development and cognitive neuroscience: The learning brain. 2nd edn. London:Routledge.