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How to learn to talk
This article gives a brief introduction to language development and includes age-appropriate activities for language-building for children birth to 3 years old.
Learning to talk is a process that starts at birth, when your baby experiences how voices can sound. By 2 years old, most babies have a large vocabulary and can put words together to express their needs and ideas. Let’s see how this process unfolds and what you can do to encourage your baby’s ability to communicate.
From Birth to 3 Months
Your baby listens to your voice. He coos and gurgles and tries to make the same sounds you make. You can help your baby learn how nice voices can be when you:
- Sing to your baby. You can do this even before he is born! Your baby will hear you.
- Talk to your baby. Talk to others when she is near. She won’t understand the words, but will like your voice and your smile. She will enjoy hearing and seeing other people, too.
- Plan for quiet time. Babies need time to babble and play quietly without TV or radio or other noises.
From 3 to 6 Months
Your baby is learning how people talk to each other. You help him become a “talker” when you:
- Hold your baby close so he will look in your eyes.
- Talk to him and smile.
- When your baby babbles, imitate the sounds.
- If he tries to make the same sound you do, say the word again.
From 6 to 9 Months
Your baby will play with sounds. Some of these sound like words, such as “baba or “dada.” Baby smiles on hearing a happy voice, and cries or looks unhappy on hearing an angry voice. You can help your baby understand words (even if she can’t say them yet) when you:
- Play games like Peek-a-Boo or Pat-a-Cake. Help her move her hands along with the rhyme.
- Give her a toy and say something about it, like “Feel how fuzzy Teddy Bear is.”
- Let her see herself in a mirror and ask, “Who’s that?” If she doesn’t respond, say her name.
- Ask your baby questions, like “Where’s doggie?” If she doesn’t answer, show her where.
From 9 to 12 Months
Your baby will begin to understand simple words. She stops to look at you if you say “no-no.” If someone asks “Where’s Mommy?” she will look for you. She will point, make sounds, and use her body to “tell” you what she wants. For example she may look up at you and lift her arms up to show you she “wants up.” She may hand you a toy to let you know she wants to play. You can help your baby “talk” when you: Show her how to wave “bye-bye.”
From 12 to 15 Months
Babies begin to use words. This includes using the same sounds consistently to identify an object, such as “baba” for bottle or “juju” for juice. Many babies have one or two words and understand 25 or more. He will give you a toy if you ask for it. Even without words, he can ask you for something—by pointing, reaching for it, or looking at it and babbling. You can help your child say the words he knows when you:
- Talk about the things you use, like “cup,” “juice,” “doll.” Give your child time to name them.
- Ask your child questions about the pictures in books. Give your child time to name things in the picture.
- Smile or clap your hands when your child names the things that he sees. Say something about it. “You see the doggie. He’s sooo big! Look at his tail wag.”
- Talk about what your child wants most to talk about. Give him time to tell you all about it.
- Ask about things you do each day—“Which shirt will you pick today?” “Do you want milk or juice?”
- Build on what your child says. If he says “ball,” you can say, “That’s your big, red ball.”
- Introduce pretend play with your child’s favorite doll or toy animal. Include it in your conversations and your play. “Rover wants to play too. Can he roll the ball with us?”
From 15 to 18 Months
Your child will use more complex gestures to communicate with you and will continue to build her vocabulary. She may take your hand, walk you to the bookshelf, point to a book and say “buk” to say, “I want to read a book with you.” You can help your child talk with you when you:
- Tell her “Show me your nose.” Then point to your nose. She will soon point to her nose. Do this with toes, fingers, ears, eyes, knees and so on.
- Hide a toy while she is watching. Help her find it and share in her delight.
- When he points at or gives you something, talk about the object with her. “You gave me the book. Thank you! Look at the picture of the baby rolling the ball.”
From 18 Months to 2 Years
Your baby will be able to follow directions and begin to put words together, such as “car go” or “want juice.” He will also begin to do pretend play which fosters language development. You can spur your child’s communication skills when you:
- Ask your child to help you. For example, ask him to put his cup on the table or to bring you his shoe.
- Teach your child simple songs and nursery rhymes. Read to your child. Ask him to point to and tell you what he sees.
- Encourage your child to talk to friends and family. He can tell them about a new toy.
- Engage your child in pretend play. You can talk on a play phone, feed the dolls, or have a party with the toy animals.
From 2 to 3 Years
Your child’s language skills will grow by leaps and bounds. He will string more words together to create simple sentences, such as “Mommy go bye-bye.” He will be able to answer simple questions, such as “Where is your bear?” By 36 months he will be able to answer more complicated questions such as, “What do you do when you are hungry?” He will do more and more pretend play, acting out imaginary scenes such as going to work, fixing the toy car, taking care of his “family” (of dolls, animals).
You can help your child put all his new words together and teach him things that are important to know when you:
- Teach your child to say his or first and last name.
- Ask about the number, size, and shape of the things your child shows you.
- Ask open-ended questions that don’t have a “yes” or “no” answer. This helps them develop their own ideas and learn to express them. If it’s worms, you could say: “What fat, wiggly worms! How many are there?…Where are they going? Wait, watch and listen to the answer. You can suggest an answer if needed: “I see five. Are they going to the park or the store?”
- Ask your child to tell you the story that goes with a favorite book. “What happened to those three pigs?” Reading spurs language development. Take him to storytime at your local library. Your toddler will enjoy sharing books with you as well as peers.
- Do lots of pretend play. Acting out stories and role-playing create rich opportunities for using, and learning, language.
- Don’t forget what worked earlier. For example, your child still needs quiet time. This is not just for naps. Turn off the TV and radio and let your child enjoy quiet play, singing, and talking with you.
Do you have a vivid imagination? Try this simple exercise. Imagine that you fall asleep and hours later wake up in a foreign country.
After a frantic search, you realize that no one speaks your language. There are no computers available. There are no translators. To get back home, you are going to have to learn to communicate in a new language.
You have no idea where you are or how you got there. You find a few friendly faces and attempt to communicate, but you quickly realize that you have no idea what they’re saying.
How long will that take? It’s hard to tell. There’s no one to teach you. You simply have to listen and try to learn the language on your own. Sound impossible? It’s not. In fact, you’ve done it before. The task you face is quite similar to the task you faced when you were born. You didn’t have a translator, a grammar book, or a speech coach, but you learned to speak anyway!
If you can imagine such a scenario, you can appreciate the miraculous nature of how we all come to learn to talk. It’s a linguistic mystery that scientists still don’t fully understand. Exactly how is it that we can be born and just a few years later have a basic command of a language and a vocabulary of thousands of words?
When you think about a baby’s first words, it’s clear that imitation probably plays a role in learning those first sounds that equate to words. After hearing your parents repeat “mama” and “dada” over and over again, it’s no surprise that such words are the first a baby might learn to speak.
However, linguistic experts believe that there’s much more than just imitation at work. For example, as soon as children begin to speak and put together two words to form their first sentences, they’re able to express original thoughts that don’t necessarily imitate anything they’ve heard before.
Some experts believe that children begin to construct for themselves a basic set of rules about language that they learn from listening to those around them. Through trial and error, they quickly learn to choose words and put them in an order that will efficiently communicate their wants and needs.
As children mature, their speech grows and improves as they add to and amend their system of rules to match more closely the speech of those around them. Incredibly, children all over the world appear to learn to talk in similar ways in a similar sequence on a similar developmental timetable.
How can that be? Some researchers believe that the ability to learn language is somewhat innate in human beings. Plato had that idea thousands of years ago and researchers are still trying to determine whether he was right.
Some experts disagree with the notion that humans are born with an innate ability to learn language, but at least one recent study has provided some support for that notion. Even if there is an innate component to language acquisition, researchers point out that children are impacted greatly by the conversations they hear and take part in. There are many pieces of the language acquisition puzzle, and researchers know they don’t fully understand them all yet.
Wonder Words (18)
- VIVID
- FRANTIC
- SEARCH
- TEACH
- LISTEN
- TASK
- FOREIGN
- INNATE
- ATTEMPT
- REALIZE
- SIMILAR
- ACQUISITION
- IMAGINATION
- COMMUNICATE
- TRANSLATOR
- SCENARIO
- MIRACULOUS
- LINGUISTIC
TAKE THE WONDER WORD CHALLENGE
DID YOU GET IT?
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
Wonder What’s Next?
Brr! You might want to bring a jacket if you’re joining us in Wonderopolis tomorrow!
Try It Out
We could babble on and on about language! But now it’s time to find a few friends or family members to help you explore the following activities:
- Do you remember when you spoke your first words? Probably not! That’s OK, though. It was a long time ago. To learn more about how children develop language in their early years, check out the Talking Timeline online. Discuss it with your family members. Were your speech milestones consistent with the timeline?
- Find a friend or family member with babies or young children. Spend some time observing the children. How many words do they know? Can they imitate you? How many words can they put together in a sentence? Do they seem to understand some basic rules of syntax and grammar? How would you assess their current state of speech development?
- To better understand the miraculous nature of early childhood language development, spend some time trying to learn some basic words and phrases in a foreign language. Choose a language you’ve never spoken or heard before. Use online resources to find an introduction to learning that language and give it a try. How easy or difficult do you find it to pick up a new language?