7 Strategies to enrich vocabulary during children's language development

One of the moments most parents look forward to is when your little one starts learning to talk. Generally, children begin to assemble a lot of vocabulary into a complete sentence when they are 18 to 24 months old. A diverse collection of children's vocabulary will help foster understanding, speech communication, and reading skills. Therefore, increasing vocabulary is very important when your little one starts learning to speak. Well, here are tips for helping children's language development by enriching their vocabulary.

7 ways to help children's language development by enriching their vocabulary

To optimize children's language development, you can do various things that can increase their vocabulary, such as:

1. Always talk to your child about anything

A study, reported on the Parents page, states that children who are always talked to about anything by their parents will develop faster speech skills and understand more vocabulary when they reach the age of three compared to children who are rarely spoken to by their parents.

In fact, according to Laura Krause, a head of language pathology at La Rabida Children's hospital in Chicago, says that 90 percent of children learn new vocabulary by repeating and imitating the speech of their parents and other people around them. So, the more often you talk with the baby, the better for the child's language development.

2. Let the child talk

After inviting the child to talk, now is the time for you to give your child plenty of opportunities to talk whatever he likes. Start by giving him your full attention so that you can understand what he is trying to communicate.

Choose activities that will make your little one want to voice their thoughts and talk about whatever is around them. Usually, learning new vocabulary will emerge naturally from the surrounding environment.

3. Sing a song

According to Catherine Snow, Ph.D., a professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said that one of the keys to a child's academic success is the new vocabulary they have before entering school age.

So that, besides regularly reading stories to him, teaching various kinds of songs can be useful for improving children's vocabulary. This is a positive way to introduce various words that may be unfamiliar to your little one's ears.

4. Read the story regularly

Another way you can help your child's language development is to read stories regularly. Research states that children who are regularly invited to read by their parents have a larger vocabulary collection than children their age. You can start this by reading your child's favorite story book, then explain each picture in the book.

In addition, it could also give him the freedom to start reading on his own and let him ask for many vocabulary words that he doesn't understand. Be sure to ask questions that encourage the child to recognize new words.

5. Take the baby for a walk

Occasionally invite children to take a walk such as to a flower garden, zoo, museum, or to a place to see various types of fish. Besides being useful for refreshing the mind, this also helps your little one to learn to speak and increase his vocabulary by seeing the original form in person.

If previously he was accustomed to learning it through story books, this time give the child the opportunity to know the true form of various kinds of new things for him.

6. Make a funny sound

One way that will make it easier for your little one to remember the new vocabulary they have just learned is by making strange sounds so that children can easily remember new words. If he seems to be mimicking your way of speaking, he is likely to understand the vocabulary.

7. Correct vocabulary mistakes of children

Errors in the pronunciation of children's vocabulary are a natural thing in the learning process. You should not rebuke him by scolding his mistake.

Conversely, you can give applause as an appreciation for the child's efforts but still show how to pronounce the correct word. A positive experience will actually inspire children to continue to improve their vocabulary collection.