Baby Learns to Speak and Sing
Level 5

LEVEL 5.

BABY LEARNS TO SPEAK AND SING.

Baby’s language and speech development.

Toddler’s OMSDEP: Her language and speech development intentions:

  • To speak perfectly every word that is useful to her. 

Learning to say more words. 

Now that toddler has learnt the basics of speech in one or more languages she is ready to extend her vocabulary from 25 words to over two thousand words. An average child can take about 18 months to increase the number of words she speaks from 10 words to 2000 words while a magnificent children.love child can take about half that time. Two thousand words might sound like a lot of words but it is not really very many when we consider that a reasonable quality English dictionary is likely to have over fifty thousand words listed in it; and there are over 150,000 words in total the English language.

It can be difficult to count all the words toddler understands and speaks and to add them up until they total around 2000. To avoid difficulty a rough estimate is sufficient to decide when she has moved onto the next level. One way to do an estimate is to do your best to write down all the different words toddler says over a few hours, or a day, then make an educated guess at how many more words she might know. Similarly, you can make audio tape recordings of conversations with toddler and play the tape when it is convenient to count the number of different words she has spoken. Another way is to estimate when you think she can speak as well as, and use as many words as, an average 3 year old.

Frequently ask questions: 

Take toddler to as many venues, events, parks, places and live shows as possible and ask her many questions about those activities. Ask her easy to answer questions as if she is an authority on the activity even if you already know the answer.  You will probably already know the answer to most of the questions you ask her. 

What is important is to give her the opportunity to express her thoughts in speech. It is also important not to criticise her answers. If her answer to the question, “What colours can fish be? “ is, “Red and green.“ Say something like; “Red and green are lovely colours for fish.“ Definitely don’t say; “You’re wrong! Because fish can also be yellow and purple and lots of other colours.” The book “Magnificent Behaviour” provides reasons for positively supporting toddler’s answers rather than denigrating them if you do not already know why.

Some questions you might ask her are;  

“What colours can fish be? “ 

“What animals drink water?” 

“Why do you think people come here?”

“How do animals in this zoo get their food?”  

“How would you paint that painting?”  

“I wonder if bus drivers like to drive buses? What do you think?”  

“Would you like to drive a bus, a train or an elephant?”  “Why?”

“What would you like about that?”  “Why?”

A concrete word environment: 

To give toddler the opportunity to experience concrete words natural parents change the environment by taking her into a suitable environment. When parent and toddler are in a suitable environment toddler can easily learn new words and their meaning, and parents can easily ask questions that allow her to use words pertaining to the new environment. For example, if the environment is a zoo then it is easy to speak about a dugong, rhinoceros or, say, the animal carers as you and toddler observe the carers feeding them grass. Similarly, it is easy to refer to the conductor and different instruments in an orchestra if the environment is a classical music concert. Most parents find it is useful to keep a list of suitable environments in a prominent position in the family home so that children and parents can refer to it when they are needing a quick solution to the question: “What will we do now?” The lists can, of course, also be used to plan language activities, as well as science, art, general knowledge, social and other activities. 

The following list was compiled by a family for use with their child. Parents can compile their own list (perhaps with toddler’s help) and post it on a wall ready for reference when time is available to take toddler out. Having an activities list helps to provide a quick solution if it seems as though there is nothing of interest to do. 

Things to do:  

  • Board games.  
  • Chess.  
  • Mastermind.
  • Garden hose.
  • Beach:
  • Bodyboard.
  • Swim.  
  • Sand dune climb.  
  • Low tide sandbank play. 
  • Meet new friends on beach.  
  • Community play ground.  
  • Bike ride.  
  • Billabong swim.  
  • Canal swim and explore bush. 
  • Dig holes and build castles.
  • Brunswick Heads:
  • Explore river.
  • Bar B Q at park. 
  • Heated swimming pool.  
  • Unheated swimming pool. 
  • Watch veterinary surgery.  
  • Explore New Brighton mangroves at low tide.  
  • Oyster gathering at Harry’s head at low tide.  
  • Visit a friend.  
  • Make a cake.  
  • Make coconut bread.  
  • Make sweet potato chips.
  • Watch a motor mechanic or builder or other work.
  • Drawing; cartoons with Ed Emberly.
  • Painting.
  • Listen to story tape.
  • Visit pathology laboratory; see bacteria.  
  • Visit local veterinarian; see bacteria. 
  • Make a kite.  
  • Fly a kite.  
  • Write to a friend.  
  • Telephone a friend.  
  • Plant flower seeds.  
  • Pick ripe tomatoes.
  • Plant vegetable seeds.
  • Pick ripe vegetables.
  • Make a clay pot.
  • Wider afield:  
  • Whale Centre.
  • Knockrow Nature Park.
  • Pioneer plantation.  
  •  Seaworld.
  • Ballina Water slide.  
  • Movie World.  
  • Dreamworld.  
  • Wet and Wild. 
  • Crystal Castle. 
  • Tea tree plantation Ballina.
  • Climb Mount Warning.  
  • Climb Mount Chincogan.  
  • Indian dancing and food; Sundays. 
  • National forest walk
  • Macadamia factory
  • Visit factories

Activities for parents and toddlers:

  1. Take toddler to many different environments and ask her many questions as if she is an authority on that environment. Give her ample time to fully express herself when she replies to your questions. 

  2. Compile a list of many local venues, events, parks, places, shows and other activities. Post the list on a wall or other prominent position at home. Use the list as a source of different environments to which you can take toddler.  Go to each listed place and then begin to visit each place on the list again, and again, and again. Add new places to the list when possible and delete any that become unsuitable or potentially over exposed. At least twice each week (or each day if possible) choose one of the listed places and go there. The key intention here is to go to many and varied environments in which a wide range of concrete words can be used naturally and frequently. 

  3. Read and do the activities in the section titled “ENJOYING SOUNDS, MUSIC AND LANGUAGES”.

Politely interrupt people who use ‘baby talk’.  

Encourage adults to use full and excellent language.  

Every day, frequently congratulate toddler for speaking. 

  1. Teach toddler using the Magnificent Knowledge activities. 

  2. Try teaching toddler using the Magnificent Reading activities.  

What toddler should be doing when she enters this Level of development: 

  • Speaking and understanding 25 words and using one or more 2 word couplets. 

What toddler should be doing as she enters the next Level of development:

  • Speaking and understanding 2000 or more words. 

    An average child is likely to move on to Level 6 at approximately age 36 months.

    A magnificentchildren.love child could potentially move on to Level 6 at approximately age 18 months

Level 6