Article at-a-glance:

Teaching Vocabulary

by Susan B. Neuman, Ed.D.

Many of us delight in the cooing and babbling of our baby's first utterances, those wonderful sequences of sounds that begin to form words, like "baba" for bottle, "wawa" for water. And before too long, we know that these charming approximations will become distinguishable words, leading first to telegraphic speech, such as "Mommy, get me," to whole sentences. By the age of 3 1/2 years old, your child's conversational skills will grow enormously, first through several units of simple exchanges, then to more elaborated whole sentences. Recent estimates are that your child will learn about eight words a day between the ages of 18 months and six years.

We use language to express our feelings, to teach, and to play with our young children. It's a skill that many of us may take for granted; yet as a parent, you actually have an enormous role to play in helping your child develop a rich and varied vocabulary. A recent study suggested that by three years old, 86% to 98% of the words children use consist of the words also recorded in your vocabulary. In other words, by the age of three, children are talking and using words very similar to the averages of their parents.

But language is not just talk. Prominent psychologists (like Jean Piaget from Switzerland and Lev Vygotsky from Russia) recognized the importance of the relationship between language and thought. In other words, children use words to develop important conceptual understandings-language actually drives cognitive development, with words standing for increasingly sophisticated ideas. Children use the natural medium of language for thinking.

That is why children who acquire a substantial vocabulary are often able to think more deeply, express themselves better, and actually learn new things more quickly. And this knowledge builds more knowledge and more word power, so that by the time children get to school, they will have several important skills that are critical to later reading success: knowledge about their world and language to communicate with others.

The good thing is that there are many ways to help boost your child's vocabulary. Most language is learned naturally, by listening to the people around them. The richer and more abundant the language children hear daily, the more well developed their own language will be. One study suggested that by the age of four, children in a language-rich environment have listened to over 45 million words.

Listening to conversation, though, is not enough. Children need to be active participants in conversations. Sorting clothes, Brett asks her mother, "Put clothes in there." Her mother responds, "Yes, I'm putting socks away in the drawer. See? There are also some tights." Brett asks, "Tights?" "These are tights that you wear this winter when it gets cold, colder, and even colder." Expanding upon her words, Brett's mother talks with her child about what she is doing -- and why -- in a wonderful beginning "chat" that is building word power.

Your responsiveness to your child's attempts to use language is also enhanced through the use of common routines. Routines highlight predicable language events that help your child to anticipate what comes next and to know how to act under such circumstances. Routines may vary from the simple salutary "Hi how are you," "Fine, thanks, and how are you?" to the more involved set of interactions that typically accompany the bedtime routine.

A typical routine is to visit the library each week. Young Hannah strides confidently to the preschool area in the library, summons the librarian to find her favorite "Curious George" book, and runs to the check-out counter. "I wanna check it out," she announces without hesitating for a minute, with a comfortable gait that could only be attributed to a highly familiar routine. And from these routines, Hannah will develop language patterns or a set of scripts that help her to anticipate events, to reason, and to gain information and new vocabulary.

Among the common routines connected to vocabulary development is book reading. Reading to her baby, a mother will first evoke Jessica's attention by pointing to a picture and saying, "Look. What's that?" When Jessica points or makes any vocal attempts, her mother fills in the response by saying, "That's right, Jessica. They are playing with a ball." And you'll find that this pattern of dialogue that is typically repeated page after page will not only be emotionally satisfying to the young child, but intellectually challenging, and ultimately rewarding in increased vocabulary use. And then, just as the child gets comfortable with this routine, her mother will, in Jerome Bruner's phrase, "up the ante." She'll encourage Jessica to label the pictures on her own, always ensuring that she is engaged in and successful in responding to her questions.

Those mundane chores that you do weekly, such as going to the grocery store or getting gas for your car, are every bit as important to your child's vocabulary development as going to the museum. Since their minds are like sponges, preschoolers use every opportunity to learn new words. When you visit the auto shop to get a new muffler, talk about mufflers, exhaust systems, and welding. When you visit the greenhouse to choose new plants for the garden, talk about marigolds, impatiens, and zinnias. When you make a new recipe, talk about tacos, avocados, tomatoes, and salsa.

Never underestimate the importance of good conversation and information to the development of vocabulary.