interesting tip on language development

Parenting and Education (Other) General Parenting
1

I was googling “tips to develop language skills”. Tips were good but not surprising, like this
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/tips-toddlers-develop-language-skills/story?id=9491324

But this was something interesting http://homeparents.about.com/od/backtoschool/a/language_2.htm

:slight_smile:

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The Secret of Reading to your Child

Parents should read to their children as often as possible. The secret, however, which will lead to optimal language development, is to read the SAME stories over and over and over.

In the “good old days” there was not the abundance of storybooks that there is today. Parents were compelled - it was also part of the child-rearing traditions - to tell over and over to their children the few stories that they knew, or to read over and over to their children the few books in their possession. They also spent a lot of time teaching their children rhymes and songs. As I discovered for myself through my own son, this over and over repetition of the same stories and rhymes was extremely beneficial for the acquisition of language. In fact, I took this tradition to the extreme, exposing my son to only ONE book for nearly two years.

Soon after my elder son, Gustav, was born, I bought him a book with the story of Pinocchio. The book was aimed at four-year-olds. Except for talking to him continually, I started to read to him from this book when he was only two or three months old - as often as I could, over and over and over. I found this tedious, of course. Gustav, however, loved it, and the results of this experiment made all my efforts worthwhile. Not only did he start talking much sooner than most children do, but when he was just over two years, he could recite nearly all the pages from Pinocchio. When turning to a new page, one only had to read the first word or two on that page and he would recite the rest of the page like a parrot. In itself this may seem quite useless, but of great importance was that the vocabulary in this book soon became part of his everyday speech. In terms of language development, he was soon miles ahead of his age group. In fact, to this day, his vocabulary and his ability to speak with clarity are quite astounding.

When a child is a bit older, one should start teaching him nursery rhymes. Research has shown that knowledge of nursery rhymes among three-year-olds was a significant predictor of later prereading skills even after the children’s IQ and their mothers’ educational levels were partialed out.

While an apple a day keeps the doctor away, talking forever makes your child clever!

2

that was very interesting. thank you so much for shring that :slight_smile:

3

Thanks! Last days I am thinking about it. My first child was early speaker. At the beginning, we did not have very much toys and children books. I did not know which books are the most appropriate for 1 year age and often I tried to read some of my favorite books. When my kid was 1.5 years, she was advanced enough to say what she wants. Often, I was reading “The comet is coming” by Toove Jansson. It is a book for children but it is the most popular among grownups. More than 100 pages, small letters. I wanted to read it chapter by chapter but my girl always wanted it from the beginning. So, each day I was reading the same book from the beginning because she wanted. For months. I thought that it is boring and useless but I did it :slight_smile:

Sometimes we watched animation movies. We did not watch TV and we had only three animation movies in our language :smiley: Girl wanted to watch them together with me and I explained what is happening. Soon, she cited movie and me.

So it occurred that it was the best to follow the choices of my child. They know what they need if they have a choice :smiley: :smiley:

My second one is not an early speaker. We have a lot of books, toys and movies. Now I will fix to few items only :smiley:

4

Thanks for the article, Frukc. It was very thought provoking.

5

I agree you should read to them the same books over and over, but I don’t think you have to limit the number of books you read to your children. If you were to read books building on similar topics, themes and characters, etc. this can haven even more impact since they are hearing more words, concepts, etc. For example, my 12mos old loves Dora, so have 5 dora books I read to her over and over again. Instead of her watching the show I play the music from the show and we read the books, sometimes all of them back to back.

What’s important in my opinion is your child loving reading, writing, math, you can develop that by treating books like toys and always having them available and adding more as needed.

6

I discussed this in my blog.
There are some responses :smiley:

  • My mom did it. She had some stories which we listened again and again. We had large vocabulary early. When I was four, I repeatedly read Winnie Pooh (original version). My brother started to read at two.

  • I did it, intuitively, from the beginning. I avoided the translated literature because there is a large difference. Hundreds of times, my son listened my favorite literature like poetry of F.Barda. When he started to speak he already cited poetry. He started to read at three, without teaching, just sitting on my lap and watching. Now he has a large vocabulary, much better than his schoolmates.

  • My mom remembers that I always wanted her to read one and the same book. I started to read at three.

7

But the common denominator is that your parents read to you, there’s results there but the question is would you have been better readers if you had more variety.

I have a nephew who will only read Tonka Town, we read it to him night and day, he hates books and can’t read a lick at the age of 6. Reading to me is like toys, you don’t give them a million to play with because they won’t focus.

8

I also know a family where mother was reading to her son every day since 1.5 years. But she did not teach anything else because she was one of these mothers who think that any teaching until 6 - 7 years is dangerous. Now the boy is rather unsuccessful in school.

9

Jim Trelease - author of the Read Aloud Handbook - who says that children can learn to read simply by being read to, recommends reading at least three books a day, every day. By the time you’re through the year, your child will have gone through over a thousand books.

This is the recommendation for selecting the three books to be read each day:

  1. A new book your child has never read before.
  2. A familiar book.
  3. A favourite book.

So while it is important to do repeat reading of the same books, introducing new books is also important.

10

I love The Read Aloud Handbook and I just finished What To Read When. They are excellent books about the importance of reading to our kids and choosing appropriate books at different ages. I highly recommend reading these.