Two years marks the stage where toddlers are combining words. The best way to help them is to model lots of language throughout the day. You want to try and model the next step in their development, by adding one more word to what they are saying. For example if they say “car gone”, you might expand on that by saying “Daddy’s car gone.”
Regular reading should also be introduced if you aren’t already doing this. Reading exposes children to a range of vocabulary they haven’t encountered in their everyday environment. Most importantly, reading teaches children about how books work, and sets them up for a successful start when learning to read.
By three years old, most children have a reasonable amount of words and are making little sentences. What research has shown, is that for strong language skills, now is the time to start exposing your child to more sophisticated words, so using words like ‘purchase’ instead of buy, or cutlery instead of knives and forks.
You can explain these as you go, and link them to things your child already knows about. For example “We need cutlery to cut our food up for dinner… Can you please get the knives and forks from the cutlery drawer?” The size of a child’s vocabulary at age 4 is directly related to their literacy outcomes at school, so feeding in a variety of more complicated words now is worth the investment!
For more information or speech related help, get in touch with Costal Kids Speech.
