How to teach babies to talk

What new parents look forward to most is the first "dad" and "mom" from their baby. Considering the hardships they endured during pregnancy, parents should be relieved. So how old are babies when they start to speak? How to teach babies to speak? What should you pay attention to when teaching babies to speak? Let's take a closer look.

At what age do babies start talking?

The development of oral language in infants goes through three stages: crying, babbling, and gradually speaking. For example, a newborn baby will only cry reflexively, but by the time he is 4 months old, he will have simple conscious crying, such as crying when hungry, uncomfortable, and in pain, and sometimes he will use smiles and laughter to express his feelings.

At 7-8 months, they will start to pronounce the sounds of dad, mom, and grandpa. After 9-10 months, it becomes a second signal to call relatives. The vocabulary of children aged 1.5-2 years old begins to grow rapidly, and increases more at the age of 3, and slows down at the age of 5-6. This is basically the process.

Babies mainly acquire language through listening and imitating, so mothers should talk to their children more and communicate with them to promote their baby's language development.

How to teach babies to talk

Start talking to your baby early

Parents must remember: Don't wait until your child can speak before talking to them! The conversation with your baby should start from the moment the baby is born. Of course, babies don't communicate with you in words at first. They will respond to you with babbling, actions, or even crying. But this is not a problem, because in this communication process you can better understand the baby's language, and you can give the baby a lot of language stimulation, laying the foundation for its future language development. More importantly, this process can cultivate the relationship between you and your baby and form a good parent-child attachment.

Read and tell stories to your baby more often

Research and practice have proven that reading and storytelling can greatly promote the development of a baby's language ability. The language used in reading and storytelling is written language, which is different from spoken language. Compared with spoken language, it is a more standardized form of language expression. More exposure to this type of language can enrich children's vocabulary and language expression.

Introduce more things around your baby

For young children, everything around them is very new and they are full of curiosity about everything they see. Therefore, parents should seize this characteristic of their babies to carry out language education, such as introducing food to their babies during meals, and telling their babies about various flowers, plants and trees when taking a walk in the community... In short, we should seize every bit of life to create a rich language learning environment for babies.

Use “mom language”

The so-called motherly language means that when mothers talk to their babies, they will unconsciously slow down their speech speed, raise their voice and make their tone a little exaggerated. However, it is undeniable that babies like such words very much because they find such language very interesting and easy to understand.

What to pay attention to when teaching your baby to talk

Language learning should be gradual and not rushed

Children may encounter various problems in the process of learning a language, such as unclear pronunciation and inappropriate word usage. Parents should patiently teach their children the correct pronunciation and word usage. However, parents should not blame their children. Instead, they should repeat the correct pronunciation and word usage more often and ignore the mistakes. Give children positive reinforcement. In this way, children can change imperceptibly.

Don’t put the cart before the horse when learning a language

Nowadays, society advocates early learning of languages, especially English. It is not good for children to blindly learn foreign languages ​​before they have mastered their mother tongue. Only when they have fully mastered the grammar and rules of their mother tongue can they be exposed to foreign languages. So I gave Lu Baobao enough time to learn his mother tongue, and through various methods, I let him master the various rules of his mother tongue in life and games, and use them freely. Lu Baobao, who is already four years old, has started to learn English. This is also a very natural process. It is not necessary for the baby to master a lot of knowledge, but to let the baby have a sense of bilingualism. Some commonplace things in life have another way of expression, which is also what the baby feels novel about.

Parents’ language habits are very important in daily life

Once, when I was chatting with my baby, he accidentally said "It's so unlucky". I was surprised. How could there be such a word in my baby's language? So I asked: "What does it mean to be unlucky?" The baby said it means bad. I asked the baby how he knew it, and he said that his mother said it. I reflected on whether I had said such words intentionally or unintentionally. Another day, we went to kindergarten early in the morning, and as soon as we went out, Lu's baby said, "Mom, look how good the weather is!" I said happily, yes. I think this is also because I habitually say a word about the weather to my baby almost every day! So in order to let babies develop good language habits, parents must start with themselves.

Standard language comes from books

For example, in addition to oral language, we also need to teach babies some written language. Of course, this is just a process of accumulation, and it may take a long time to accumulate some, but we need to give babies a sense of this language. In addition to our oral language, there are also some formal written languages. This is also a good way to prepare babies to learn to read.

Seize the best time to learn literacy

The best time for children to learn to read is between 3 and 6 years old. I tried to teach Lu Baobao to read when he was three years old. Of course, this is just a process of learning through games. I borrowed some methods, such as happy imagination reading, rhyme reading, picture reading, nursery rhyme reading, card reading, etc. In one month, the baby learned about 100 words. Learning in games and high-frequency repetition, the baby can master it quickly. Later, due to work, I didn't persist, but now the baby can still recognize about 40 of the words he learned at that time.

Baby's hearing development stages

1. When a baby is born, his hearing is already mature. At one month old, he can recognize some sounds. For example, he likes his mother's voice and the high-pitched female voice the most. When you talk to him, he will turn his head to look at you. If he suddenly hears a loud sound, he will be scared and cry.

2. At 2-3 months, when you talk, your baby will smile at you and make some "ah~oh~" vowel sounds. Occasionally, when you talk, your baby will not respond. But this does not necessarily mean that there is a problem with his hearing. It may also be that your voice is too familiar to him, so he is accidentally "blocked".

3.4-7 months: When the baby hears a sound, he will look for the source of the sound. He can tell whether you are happy or angry based on your tone of voice. When you speak, he will look at your mouth intently, try to imitate the sound of your speech, and begin to babbling. He may also make consonants such as m and b.

4. Between 8 and 12 months, babies will respond to their own names and understand some daily expressions. At 1 year old, they may call "Dad" or "Mom".