Children need to hear words lots and lots of times before they understand what the mean. It is only when children understand what words mean that they will start using them meaningfully.
Once your child has developed lots of single words, they should be ready to start putting words together to create short phrases and sentences.
A very useful strategy to help your children learn to put words together is to add a word to what they have already said. Remember, there should be no pressure for your child to copy you. Modelling language like this is still very useful and important.
So, if a child uses 1 word, adults can model 2 words together.
If a child uses 2 words, adults can model 3 words together.
When you add a word, you could add:
- An adjective (i.e. what colour, shape, size, texture is it)
- A verb (i.e. what is it or are you doing)
- A person or pronoun (i.e. who does it belong to)
- A quantity (i.e. how much/many are there)
For example, If your child says “bus” you could say:
- One bus
- Big bus
- My bus
- Red bus
- Fast bus
- Pushing bus.
If your child says “red bus” you could say:
- Red bus stuck
- Tommy’s red bus
- My red bus
- Driving red bus
- Slow red bus
- Big red bus.
