How to teach a child to speak: exercises, techniques and tips for parents

Most young mothers are constantly worried whether the development of the first-born is in line with normal indicators. Up to a year, they are more concerned with physical development: whether the baby began to hold his head, turn over, crawl on time. Starting from the year, such fears give way to worries about the correct and timely development of speech. This article is devoted to recommendations for interested parents on how to teach a child to speak from an early age.

The development of speech in infancy: the main stages

Domestic pediatricians are guided by the indicators used for babies up to a year, presented in the table below.

From the table it is clear when the child speaks the first word. This usually occurs before the age of one year. Let's consider in more detail how the baby’s vocabulary is formed.

Active and passive speech

Often, parents worry that the child does not speak annually. What reasons can be behind this phenomenon? To exclude the pathology of development, it should be understood: the main engine of speech development is communication. In young children, understanding (passive speech) and pronunciation (active speech) do not correspond to each other.

Already with a newborn you need to talk, helping yourself with gestures and facial expressions. These techniques begin to apply over time and the baby himself, gradually abandoning his hand movements in favor of speech. The acquisition of new words occurs with the help of a ritual, which, in essence, is a name: it is a cat, dad, sister, chair.

A word differs from babble in that a small person means a specific object or action. Words that are most often used by adults appear first in a speech.

At the initial stage, the baby can use one designation for a number of similar objects. So, to call "bibi" everything that relates to the concept of transport and has wheels: a car, a bicycle, a tractor. Moreover, for himself, he can distinguish between them.

It should be understood: a small person learns much more words than he can pronounce. If a child does not speak in a year, this can only mean the fact that he lacks full communication.

When not to worry

If there is no history of risk factors contributing to a delay in psychophysical development (difficult childbirth, hearing or vision impairment), motor functions and fine motor skills are not impaired, then at the age of one should pay attention to the following points:

• Does the baby respond to his name and the speech of others;
• Does he understand the simplest commands and does he imitate movements during the game?
• makes any sounds, even if not like ordinary words.

A positive answer indicates the development of passive speech. Active is formed individually, and more often progress is observed by one and a half year old. To answer the question of how to teach a child to speak in a year, we will dwell on the reasons that affect this process. We make a reservation in advance: this does not exclude the need to deal with the baby at home.

What to consider

The moment when the child speaks the first word depends on many circumstances. We list the main ones:

• Genetic predisposition. It is possible that one of the next of kin was also silent longer than others, accumulating at the first stage only a passive vocabulary of words.
• Gender of the child. It is believed that girls begin to talk a little earlier, but boys quickly move to the construction of more complex phrases.
• Intellectual and cognitive abilities.
• Communication time with others. Neither TV, nor modern toys can replace my mother’s voice and her gentle hands.
• Motivation. The need to use speech arises there and then, when it helps the baby to achieve what he wants. With hyperprotection, motivation is impaired.
• Using a dummy.
• Overloaded with activities ahead of the zone of actual development.
• Experienced stress (parents quarrel, relocation, violence).
• Having a twin brother or twin. With the birth of several children at once, their motivation for mastering the language is weakened due to the possibility of special contacts with each other.

First words

They consist of the simplest sounds for the baby to pronounce and are the most significant for him: mom, woman, dad. The children's dictionary is updated based on the needs of the baby and the interests that the family lives.

In the second year of his life, he learns about 20 new words every month, and only 9 is pronounced. To answer the question of how to teach a child to speak, you need to know those important concepts that are quite accessible to the one-year-old by pronunciation of sounds.

The list of the most frequently used words was compiled by Olesya Zhukova based on scientific observations. So, we learn to speak. The child is one year old, and in his dictionary may appear:

• Those who surround him: mom, grandfather, aunt, woman, dad.
• Actions that he or other people perform: top-top, am-am, tuk-tuk.
• Animals and birds: meow, pussycat, av-av, ko-ko, yoke-go.
• Products: adya - water, tea - tea, ako - milk.
• Parts of the face: nose, mouth.
• Toys: ale - phone, misha - bear.
• Clothing: dress - dress, sock, hat - hat.
• Transport: oo - airplane, bbc - car.
• State words: bo-bo - it hurts, oh, ah.

It is worth noting that most of the words are names. It’s easier for a kid to master what is being shown to him, additionally speaking. Most easily they recreate the following sounds:

• labial consonants (b, p, m);
• soft consonants (because of this, the child’s speech is often called syusyukanem);
• deaf consonants.

Speech Development Tips

How to teach a child to speak at home? It is enough to adopt the following tips:

• Parents need not only to talk a lot with the baby, but also be sure to respond to his answers. It is important for the child to be listened to and understood.
• It is necessary to create situations so that the little man can speak the words he already knows.
• During walks, new objects should be called and shown.
• Parents do not need to duplicate gibberish or incorrect pronunciation of words. Their speech should be literate.
• It is easy to compose an album from photographs of those objects that surround the baby. It should be viewed repeating important names for it.
• You can collect illustrations of actions that allow the baby to remember the verbs: “runs”, “sits”, “eats”, “sleeps”.
• Parents can sing songs with the baby, which will help to tap the rhythm.
• The simplest games should be organized: building a house, feeding a doll, putting her to sleep. Be sure to pronounce the actions within the vocabulary of the baby.
• Parents need to correct errors in speech, but do not do it in an edifying way.

Let us dwell on reading, for this is one of the most important elements in the formation of the baby's speech.

How can a book help

Parents who do not read to their children should not be surprised why the child does not speak. Books must be age appropriate and have colorful illustrations. At the first stage, it is advisable to read fairy tales and poems, where actions, and therefore phrases, are repeated several times. Examples include Turnip and Ryaba Chicken.

While reading, kids need to be asked to show pictures illustrating the characters of the work and their actions. At first it is better to use volumetric images and only in the second year switch to planar ones.

How to show pictures

From a year and a half, the vocabulary of a baby can reach up to 90 names and actions. In his vocabulary, sentence words appear: "ball" (meaning "give the ball"), "av-av" ("the dog is on"). Two-word sentences are a prerogative of an older age. Usually, children over two years old are capable of such statements. Speech development will help stimulate proper work with illustrations. Often, adults say: a child bought an expensive and colorfully illustrated book, and he quickly loses interest in it while reading. The explanation of the phenomenon is that the baby did not learn to recognize real objects in a drawn image.

What to do? How to help your child speak with book illustrations? You can use the following technique: close the "extra" images on the page, leaving one image. For comparison, put next to a similar real subject and offer to compare them. To develop voluntary attention, you should not immediately introduce a large number of pictures. It is necessary to be guided by one more rule: during reading, teach the child to participate in the dialogue. He should ask the simplest questions and ask him to show one or another illustration.

Auditory Technique

All children are individual. What if the child speaks poorly? Teachers and psychologists offer a variety of techniques suitable for specific babies. Let's consider some of them. For babies up to one year old and children of two years old, a technique called the method of auditory contact is suitable. Its essence is the regular repetition of identical words and whole phrases. For example, during a meeting, you should use the same greeting. It could be good morning, hello, hello. The child will learn the proposed rule.

From the variety of books you can choose the most beloved, which is worth reading at least once a day. Even if the baby does not utter a word, he will enthusiastically respond to familiar phrases.

Item visualization

This technique is suitable for the smallest. The more sensory organs involved, the better the result. Almost from the cradle, cubes made of soft materials can be used. Tactilely pleasant, with painted objects (products or animals), they will help the baby learn new words. Showing the picture, you should pronounce not only its name, but also the description. If the child finds it difficult to repeat, he still hears and gradually understands. And soon he will learn to pronounce the name of the subject aloud.

Visual auditory method

It is applicable for children over two years old. Which move independently and are able to play without the participation of adults. They can be offered talking games for children on appropriate entertainment devices - a tablet, smartphone, children's computer, posters with the alphabet or smart phone. These devices "talk" with the baby, naming the selected objects and allowing him to repeat them.

Speech development in the form of a game is very effective. These devices bring specific benefits. Among modern Android games, those with a pet that needs help are popular. These are peculiar analogues of previously popular tamagotchi: "Talking puppy", "Talking cat", "Talking Krosh".

Collective learning

Communication involves not only the exchange of information, but also joint activities, during which the development of speech is carried out quite quickly. Such groups touch upon various aspects that help to show abilities in many areas.

When parents do not know what to do, if the child does not speak well, it makes sense to record him in a creative studio or a special circle. Experienced carers will help build speaking skills. Group classes give the most effective results, since the level of development of the children themselves is significantly different. More developed kids pull up the rest in the process of communication.

Exercise examples

We offer several exercises that solve the problem of how to teach your child to speak. At the beginning of the article it was said that some sounds for pronunciation by young children are quite complicated. With what techniques can you work on this?

• Say "a". The child should be seated on his knees, turning his chair to the mirror. Say "a", opening his mouth wide and attracting the baby's attention to how an adult does it. You can part the crumbs handles in different directions, stimulating him to repeat this sound. Emotions should be added and met with a drawn-out “aaaa” beloved cat, for example.
• Say "o". At the same time, the mouth is rounded, so you can offer the baby the following exercise - raising the arms above the head. The movement of the lips and mouth during pronunciation should be hyperbolized, focusing on this. You can use the ball, joyfully greeting him: "Ohhh!".
• Say y. The lips are pulled with a tube. The child can be offered to depict a train. To do this, he should stretch his arms forward and buzz: "Oooo!".

The ability to express thoughts and experiences in words is one of the main skills of socialization of a person. How effectively a person speaks the language, how successfully he can realize himself in life. Parents should remember this, not sparing time for classes with the baby.