Toddler Week 53

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Purposeful Communication

Whether your child is using five to seven words in a sentence, or just one or two, it is important to start speaking with “purpose.” Speaking with purpose includes explaining, out loud, what you are doing while you are cooking or folding laundry.  Telling your child about the day’s events or reflecting upon what you did earlier in the day is all part of communicating with purpose.  Having a meaningful conversation with a variety of descriptive words will increase your child’s vocabulary and cognitive development.

While you are discussing such topics, always ask for her input because having a one sided conversation won’t be as effective!  Your child learns language by hearing words and sentences that can then be repeated. At this point your child should have about 50 words in her vocabulary and should be able to understand around 200.  Within the next year, her expressive vocabulary will burst up to 300!  What a year you have ahead of you!  Don’t be surprised, when asking your child a question with two choices, if she doesn’t choose the last option you gave her.  Kids at this age will often repeat more than they will cognitively process the question to give you an opinionated answer.  Don’t worry since this will change soon, but be aware that what they say they want may only be a result of a repeated word rather than a purposeful choice!

Family mealtime is a fantastic opportunity for purposeful communication and for this reason it is one of my favorite times of the day. It’s a daily opportunity for the whole family to sit down together and talk about their various days, what is going to happen the next day and just talk, laugh and enjoy each other. It also gives your child a chance to hear mom and dad engage in adult conversations and possibly learn some new vocabulary. 

Traveling in a car is another great chance to engage with your child in purposeful communication. Without the regular interruptions of a busy house, use this focused time to sing songs with colors, letters and numbers.  Playing a game like “I Spy” is also a fun chance to enhance language development! 

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