Your toddler learns verbs better when doing – pun intended

When learning verbs, involving your toddler by showing them what the actions mean hugely supports their understanding. Verbs can’t be linked to an object, like nouns, so when we are talking about cooking, running or, say, throwing, toddlers need to see the verb in action. 

When your toddler hears a verb for the first time their brain processes its meaning and association to the world.^[1] 

If a verb is spoken with no reference to an action, it can leave your toddler’s mind wandering. They are still learning tons about their world and are reliant on clues to help them understand new words and information. 

Verbs are tricker to learn as they can look different each time 

When your toddler learned the names for things like shoe or biscuit, they may have spent some time working out how a shoe is different to a boot or how a biscuit can come in different shapes, sizes and colours.  

This may have taken them some time and they may have called all types of footwear “shoe” while their understanding grew (they may still do). So, when we think about verbs, not having an object to look at adds another conundrum to their understanding.  

Let’s take throwing a ball. There are several ways a ball can be thrown: overarm, underarm, one handed and two handed are just a few examples. Your toddler might know the word ball, they then need to apply their linguistic reasoning to work out what throwing means.^[2] 

To add to this, your toddler may see a variety of throwing actions but only hear one word. 

It’s not known whether seeing lots of visual variabilities of verbs is better for understanding than seeing the same example of the verb in action again and again.   

Science doesn’t agree on which method is better for a child to learn verbs. Some studies suggest that varying the visual reference to words works better, so showing your toddler three or four versions of a throw better supports their understanding.^[2] 

Other studies found that showing the verb constantly, so one type of throw, results in better learning.^[2] 

What we do know to be true though is that children all learn in their own unique ways.  

Research does agree that seeing a verb in action is the most helpful way for them to learn.^[1,2,3] And even better, if they can carry out the actions of the verbs they hear, this helps their understanding even more. 

References: 

[1] Arunachalam, S. (2014) The Boy and the Balloon: How Do Toddlers Learn Verbs? Boston University. 

[2] Horvath, S., Arunachalam, S. (2021). Repetition Versus Variability in Verb Learning: Sometimes Less Is More. Journal of speech, language, and hearing research. 

[3] Twomey KE, Lush L, Pearce R, Horst JS. (2014) Visual variability affects early verb learning. Br J Dev Psychol.