My Favorite Books!
Since I’m always encouraging you to read to your little one, I thought I would share some of my favorite books to read, particularly during the first year of life.
Here’s my top 5 in no particular order:
- Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle
- Goodnight, Moon? by Margaret Wise Brown
- Where’s Spot by Eric Hill
- Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear by Steve Scott
- Where Is Baby’s Belly Button? by Karen Katz
I can’t say enough good things about reading to your baby. The benefits are priceless!
Get baby-talking!
Cheers To The Ears!
Our ears are amazing! Did you ever stop to ponder what they actually do? Yes, you know that they ‘hear’, but did you know what an amazingly complicated wonderful process that is? Check out this website to learn more - so cool!
Why all this praise for our ears? Good hearing is absolutely essential to strong speech and language skills. Babies and toddlers must hear properly in order to develop speech and language skills optimally.
It’s vitally important that your newborn’s hearing is tested at birth. It’s also important to get regular check-ups throughout these early, formative years to make sure those ears are clear of infections and fluids. Obviously, you want to get regular check-ups for children throughout their childhood as well!
If you have concerns about your baby or toddler’s hearing, go to your pediatrician and voice your concerns.
Take care of those ears and they will take care of you!
Get baby-talking!
Time To Go To Starbucks Again…
…or wherever you can get away to relax and have some time to yourself! Time to decompress, destress, keep from imploding, whatever it takes to keep yourself sane and balanced!
I have said this before and I will say it again, one of the best ways you can help your child is to make sure you are rested, balanced, and ready to face the demands of parenting. Because let’s face it, parenting is DEMANDING!
You might be out there thinking, “Yeah, that sounds great, but I don’t know how I can do that with three kids, a job, and house to keep up!” I hear you, but it doesn’t change the fact that you have to take care of yourself.
Find a way. Make a way. Just do it.
Everyone, especially your little ones, will be better for it.
So, get baby-talking and go to Starbucks!
Slow Down!
Happy Monday, everyone! I hope your week is off to a great start…
I wanted to give you a very important tip today for communicating with your baby or toddler. I have spent extensive time teaching you about “baby talk”– that high-pitched, melodic, sing-songy speech pattern we use when talking with babies. I want to add something to it.
It’s very critical that you slow down your normal rate of speech when conversing with your little one. I recently read an article called, How To Talk To Children. It’s focus was teachers and school-age children. It emphasized the need for teachers to slow down their rate of speech while teaching their classes. In a nutshell, preschool to third-grade age children can process about 120 words per minute and teachers on average were instructing at 160 words per minute! You can see where difficulties may arise from this difference.
So, let’s distill this down to babies and toddlers. Since their central nervous system is not as developed as preschoolers and school-age children, we should be slowing down our rate of speech even more in order to be effective communicators with them!
So, tip for the day: Slow down!
Remember, get baby-talking!
Just A Quote…
I thought I would share a little speech pathologist humor with you today…
From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
Winston Churchill
I did say a little humor, right?
Anway, I shall return tomorrow with pearls of language wisdom for you and your little ones.
Oh No…The Tree Is Wintered!
Those were my daughter’s words this morning as she peered at a very bare-looking Sycamore tree in the front yard. I think I have to thank Caillou for that observation.
For those of you who don’t know what Caillou is, it’s a cute PBS Kids program starring a little preschooler who has all kinds of very interesting and educational adventures. My almost three year old daughter just finished watching a Caillou video about seasons, hence the comment above.
As a speech pathologist, I get a real kick out of some of the words Grace creates, like wintered. She took a season and turned it into a past tense verb…good for her! We should all be so creative and free!
So, my tip for you today parents is about regular past tense verbs (walk/walked). I’m sure you are now hanging on to the edge of your seat with excitement …
Regular past tense verbs should begin appearing in your child’s language repertoire between two and half and three years of age. The best way to foster the development of this is by modeling proper grammar.
Remember, language is modeled, not drilled. Skip the flashcards and just use good language skills around your house. This will be far more beneficial than trying to sit and drill anything with a toddler!
It will be fun to observe the creative verbs your toddler will come up with as he or she is learning to master language…don’t forget to write them down!
And don’t forget…get baby-talking!
Opposites!
“Will you buckle me out, Mommy?” my daugher asked as we pulled into the driveway after running errands yesterday.
How funny! We always tell Grace that we need to ‘buckle her in’ her car seat before we go anywhere. So, she made the connection that if we “buckle her in“, we must need to “buckle her out” as well! That kind of comment lets me know she’s beginning to grasp the concept of opposites.
The concept of opposites usually begins to emerge between 2.5 and 3 years of age. It starts with the toddler understanding the simple oppposites of big/little and up/down. As they get older, they will gain further understanding of opposites.
When I was practicing as a speech-pathologist in an elementary school, I loved teaching opposites! They’re just fun!
So, start acquainting your toddler with opposites today! Opposites are everywhere; just look around your house. Objects that are big versus little, water that’s cold versus hot, toys that are ‘in’ a box versus ‘out‘ of a box, up versus down…be creative! The opportunites to talk about opposites are endless.
Talking about opposites are a fantastic and fun way to build your toddler’s language development!
Get baby-talking!
Give Your Baby A Word Bath!
I know that I am always encouraging you to talk to your babies and toddlers a lot! So…I wanted to give you a fun little idea…when you give your baby a bath before bedtime, give them a word bath too!
What do I mean by a word bath?
Well, babies usually love bath time and this is a great time for talking. This means talk about everything that’s going on in the bathtub around them. Talk about the temperature of the water, about the yellow squeaky duck, the washcloth, the soap, the tub toys. Identify his or her body parts when washing them. In essence, bathe them with words as well as soap!
Remember, the more you talk to your baby the better. Studies have shown a correlation between the amount of words a child hears in the first three years of life and a higher I.Q.
So, get baby-talking!
Pictures Are Worth A Thousand Words!
If you’re like me and any other parent in the world, you take lots and lots of pictures of your children! Here’s a great tip for putting those photographs to good use.
Children, particularly toddlers, love to look at people and pictures of people. Use your own family pictures as way to build language skills.
How?
- Name who is in the picture
- Talk about where the picture was taken
- Talk about what was going on when the picture was taken, i.e. birthday party, family reunion, etc.
- Make up a funny story about the picture
- Talk about various items also seen in the picture
- If your toddler is old enough, ask them questions about the picture
The list could go on and on. One thing to keep in mind is that you want to tailor this activity to fit the age of your baby or toddler. If you have six month old, keep it simple. If you have a two and half year old, you can do what’s listed above and more. Also, even if you have a little one who’s not talking yet, give them a chance to babble back. It’s never too soon to learn turn-taking!
So, get those photo albums or digital frames out, and get talking, rather get baby talking!
Keep A Journal!
It’s been a little while since I shared a story about my daugher, Grace. She’s definitely in the stage of playing dress up with anything that’ s not nailed down. She will be turning three in mid-February. The other day she had a kitchen towel on her head and she was pretending to be Mary, Jesus’ mother! I was so proud!
Another cute story….Grace was trying on a pair of my shoes as I was getting ready to go to a meeting. After Grace successfully navigated walking over to me in my cumbersome size 9 shoes, she looked up at me and said, “When my feet grow up, I can wear your shoes to a meeting!”
O.K…I can hear the collective “awwwws” as you read this, but I wanted to use this as an opportunity to encourage you to keep a journal of the cute or funny things your child says! As soon as Grace says something that strikes me, I write it down. I didn’t do this at first. I thought I would remember it because it was so funny or so endearing. However, I couldn’t always recall it!
I would start journaling at birth! Keep a journal of your baby’s first laugh, smile, coo, gurgle, babble, first word, etc..you get the idea! Just write it down. I promise you, you won’t regret it. You will regret it if you don’t write it down.
So, get journaling and get baby talking!