0How to teach a child to talk?
Silence can be painful to handle if you have a toddler at home and you’re trying to teach her to speak. Your child should be able to speak her first few words by the time she is around a year old, but like in the case of every other developmental milestone in a child, this too varies among children. Some kids start with the gurgles and the coos as early as five months, which eventually develop into “mama,” “papa” or “dada.”
If your child is five months or older, here are a few tips to teach a child to talk.
1. Talk while she’s around
Kids learn and understand language long before they learn to speak. So, have simple conversations around her with other adults. When she keeps listening to you, she’d try to respond or get your attention by imitating you, this helps her develop babbling skills and prepare her to say the first word.
2. Smile when she is cooing
Kids recognize positive reinforcement in the form of a smile from a very young age. Always smile and respond in a warm manner when your little one tries to coo and form her first word. She’s surely gonna be motivated by that and try harder.
3. Engage in baby-talk
Repeat her cooing and babblings to encourage her into making her sounds. Engage in simple baby-talk, so that she gets comfortable to pick words and tries to imitate them.
4. Talk to her
Spend some time every day talking to your child. Talk about random things, read to her, or just engage in her cooing conversation. But do not overdo it, because all that blabbering might put her off rather than encouraging her to learn how to talk.
5. Respond when she tries to talk
Pay attention when she tries to talk to you and try to understand what she’s trying to convey and respond to her. For instance, if she has a babbling word that indicates water, and she signals for it, you could give her water while you ask “Do you want some water? Here’s your water,” by repeating the word “Water” several times.
6. Encourage
When you see her making an effort to talk, encourage her to continue. You could repeat words like “mama”, “papa” several times around her, to help her memorize and repeat the same.
7. Limit TV time
Reduce TV and other distractive engagement that your child has. Instead, you could spend that time trying to read out a story to her or singing a rhyme that she could imitate.
8. Don’t test
It obviously fills your heart with joy when you can flaunt your child’s cooing to others. But, when you ask obvious questions or force her to speak in front of others, it might put her on a performance pressure and make her clam up.
9. Be patient
Do not pressurize her to learn to start talking, just because someone else did. Be patient and understand her pace. If you find your child lagging in her ability to talk or comprehend language, you could always consult an expert.
