6 Easy Tricks to Encourage a Toddler to Talk

Encourage a toddler to talk and unlock their potential! The first few years are vital for speech, language, and cognitive skills development. Create an enriching environment that fosters speech and language skills, providing the stimulation, positive role modeling, and human contact they need. Through play, daily interactions, and experiences, help your child acquire new language and skills effortlessly.

Why is promoting communication important?

Encouraging communication and language development in infants and toddlers is crucial for several compelling reasons. Extensive research has demonstrated that increased language exposure and usage:

1. Fosters appropriate social interaction, nurturing their ability to connect with others.
2. Predicts a larger vocabulary size, not just in early years but also beyond age 3.
3. Predicts reading and language skills, setting the stage for success in later grades.
4. Predicts Kindergarten readiness, ensuring a smooth transition to formal education.
5. Helps prevent behavioral issues, laying the foundation for positive behavior.

Consequently, engaging in meaningful conversations with children holds immense significance. It empowers them to become confident communicators, better prepares them for school, and cultivates the essential communication skills needed to foster lasting friendships.

How to encourage a toddler to talk

If you want to encourage speech development or if your child is a little late with producing their first words, there are plenty of activities that you can do to promote their speech and help them produce more words. By engaging in these activities regularly, you can actively support your child’s language development and encourage the expansion of their vocabulary.

1.Song is a special type of speech

Nurture your toddler’s language development by embracing the power of lullabies, songs, and rhymes from various cultures. These musical expressions, with their distinct melodies and inflections, effectively prepare your child’s ear, voice, and brain for language acquisition. By immersing them in the rich sounds and rhythms of their native language through these cultural expressions, we establish a solid groundwork for their linguistic growth and forge a meaningful connection with their language heritage. Encourage a toddler to talk by celebrating the beauty of diverse musical traditions.

2.Speak in a slow, sing-song voice.

Encourage a toddler to talk by using a slow, sing-song voice. This captivating tone captures their attention and preference for melodic patterns. Combined with exaggerated facial expressions, it helps your little one learn language and recognize different emotions. Adopting this engaging approach creates a nurturing environment that supports their speech development and emotional understanding.

3.Good modelling

Listening is a vital component of speech development. Children learn new sounds and words by actively listening to their surroundings. To encourage a toddler to talk, it is crucial to provide them with good speech models. Enunciate words clearly and speak at a slower pace, incorporating ample intonation to captivate their attention. When your child attempts a word, celebrate their effort and offer praise. Reinforce understanding by repeating the word back to them. This nurturing approach fosters their language skills and builds their confidence in communication.

4. Encourage two-way communication

Engage in meaningful “conversations” with your baby by responding to their sounds, gestures, and emerging words. Taking turns in this interactive exchange demonstrates that communication is a two-way street, fostering their motivation to continue interacting with you. Through this back-and-forth communication, your baby will gradually develop sentence building skills and establish connections in their language development journey. Encourage a toddler to talk by embracing the joy of interactive communication and nurturing their growing language skills.

5. Read together

Spark your toddler’s language development through interactive reading. Choose books with colorful pictures and encourage pointing to familiar objects. Foster a love for books and encourage a toddler to talk.

6. Describe your actions

Enhance your baby’s language skills by providing a running commentary during daily routines like dressing, feeding, and bathing. This verbal narration helps your little one associate words with everyday activities and exposes them to the sounds of speech. By maintaining a constant stream of communication, you create numerous opportunities for your baby to listen and learn. Embrace this approach to encourage a toddler to talk, fostering their language development and building a strong foundation for communication skills.

7. Point out objects

As you engage in conversation, your baby will begin to follow your pointed finger, connecting objects with words. This natural progression allows you to expand their vocabulary further. Take the opportunity to label and describe the things they point out, building their understanding of language and the world around them. By actively participating in this process, you can encourage a toddler to talk, fostering their language development and nurturing their growing curiosity and communication skills.

How to encourage toddler to talk using everyday activities as a language learning opportunity

Using everyday activities can be a great way to practice and develop speech, language and literacy skills.

These activities can also change a mundane event into a pleasurable one. The child may also not realize that you are practicing speech and language skills because the activity will be fun.

Using everyday tasks to promote speech and language is relatively easy, you just have to use your imagination:

1. Bathtime

Use lots of vocabulary during bath-time, talk to your child, and model the words for them.

Introduce vocabulary: wash, scrub, rinse, clean, brush, dry, splash,  soap, towel, water, tap, body parts.

Sing songs in the bath..”this is the way we brush our teeth”

2. Cleaning the bedroom

Play “I-spy” to practice initial sound awareness (good for speech and language development).

3. Talk about what the people on the street are doing (e.g. walking, working, riding etc)

These are just simple ways to use everyday opportunities to find entertaining and simple ways to focus on speech and language.

4.Motivating sound games

Sometimes, using games can motivate your child to make sounds. For instance, play the game – ready… steady…. GO!! Blow up a balloon, hold it, then say “ready….steady….GO”, and let the balloon go. Do this a few times and then pause after you say “ready…steady….” and see if your child steps in and says “GO”.

5. Simple Games

Encourage a toddler to talk through interactive games that seamlessly enhance speech and language skills. Whether you’re on a car ride, at the park, or in the supermarket, these simple games provide opportunities for language development in everyday moments. As you focus on speech and language during play, you also foster social skills, turn-taking, observation, listening, and attention. It’s a win-win situation, creating a fun and engaging environment that promotes language growth and cultivates a range of valuable skills.

6.Role play

Encourage a toddler to talk through the imaginative play of dressing up and assuming different roles. You don’t even need costumes to engage in role play. Games involving various characters provide a platform to introduce new related language and enhance your child’s creative play skills.

For example, pretending to be firefighters extinguishing a fire opens up a world of related words: fire, fireman, fire engine, ladder, water, hose, burning, building. Meaningful conversations with children require time, but these activities, along with your own imagination to build upon, lay a strong foundation for speech development and foster a love for language.

Language serves as a powerful tool that can be enriched throughout life, and cultivating a love for learning begins early. Providing a stimulating environment and ample opportunities for children to learn and explore is of utmost importance in their language development journey.

The next article by the author is ” Activities to help develop learning and attention for Children” 

Please be updated by following me on Google +, Twitter, Pinterest or liking my Facebook Page My Little Moppet

If you like this article, Subscribe to our Newsletter here to receive regular updates. We Promise not to spam your inbox!!

Written and compiled by Bethsheba Arsiwala

Bethsheba Arsiwala is a Special Educator and Child Counsellor, having worked in the field for a little over a decade now. She has worked with children with Special Needs (Learning Difficulties, Autism, A.D.H.D and Behavioural issues). Having with toddlers till adolescence, her experience has led her to conduct Parent and teacher workshops on almost most topics involving Parenting and Teaching children with Special needs and Behavioural issues.

Bethsheba has had the honour of working with a few international schools as a Resource personnel and Also headed the Department Of Special Needs in an International School in Pune. At the moment on a sabbatical, but she does conduct workshops and counseling sessions from the comfort of her home.

photo credit: gromgull via photopin
photo credit: neonzu1 via photopin cc