If you want to give a child a head start in life, how helpful is early learning? Your baby can probably accomplish much more than you would think very early on during their development. In fact, it is these formative years when new information and skills are most readily absorbed. Children are more likely to pick up and retain languages in their first four years of life than at any other time. Parents should take advantage by supplying tools that will help facilitate speaking and reading at an early age. Your baby can learn to speak and read more readily if you help them prepare.
Many parents are anxious to hear their children speak their first word, and then string together their first coherent sentence, and even stand up to make their first public speech. Communication is one of the most important skills in life a person will have, and an elegant speaker may have many more opportunities than those who lack such a gift. Standard child development dictates that most babies will utter their first intelligible word between 9 and 12 months old. Language acquisition in the first two years is sluggish for many children, and most have vocabularies of no more than fifty words (but they tend to understand many more). It is between the ages of three and five where there is a huge spurt of language growth, which is also when it becomes clearer which children are more adept at communication skills.
Your baby can, however, get a head start on speaking. There are certain periods of intense language spurts throughout a child’s development. They generally only last a few months, after which there may be another lull before the next spurt. During these times, the child is very focused and keen to acquire new knowledge, often pointing to objects and demanding the word for them. While it is important for parents to encourage this, it is not feasible to walk around with a toddler for several hours a day, identifying items. Specialized DVDs, books, and play dates are all ways to capitalize on these spurts and boost vocabulary in order to give a child a head start.
Once a child begins to speak, reading is the natural next step. Reading early and often is a great way to strengthen memory, increase intelligence, and augment vocabulary. Children who are more adept at reading tend to do better in all aspects of academics as well. Reading is a skill that takes more time to develop than speaking, but starts to occur at the 12 month mark. Letters can begin to be identified as well as combinations of sounds. One of the easiest ways that your baby can read early on is through exposure. The more prevalent the written word is, the more chances they will have to absorb and understand it. Reading with children regularly and using DVDs to help facilitate visualizing letters and words will also help instill a love of the activity, which is important for future growth.
By: aabadie
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