Easy baby words
First Words, Teaching Activities, and More
Written by Rebecca Buffum Taylor
In this Article
- When Will You Hear Baby's First Words?
- Can You Teach Babies to Talk?
- If You're Concerned About a Speech Delay
Before babies learn to talk in a real language -- English, say, or Spanish -- they babble and coo, playing with sound. That's baby talk, and baby talk sounds similar the world over.
But when will you hear your baby's first words? Critical milestones for a baby learning to talk happen in the first three years of life, when a baby's brain is rapidly developing. During that time, your baby's speech development depends on your "baby talk" skills as well as your baby's.
When Will You Hear Baby's First Words?
The first "baby talk" is nonverbal and happens soon after birth. Your baby grimaces, cries, and squirms to express a range of emotions and physical needs, from fear and hunger to frustration and sensory overload.
Good parents learn to listen and interpret their baby's different cries.
Just when your baby will say those magical first words varies greatly from individual baby to individual baby. But if your baby misses any of the following milestones in speech development, talk to your pediatrician or family doctor about your concerns.
Baby Talk Milestones
- Baby talk at 3 months. At 3 months, your baby listens to your voice, watches your face as you talk, and turns toward other voices, sounds, and music that can be heard around the home. Many infants prefer a woman's voice over a man's. Many also prefer voices and music they heard while they were still in the womb. By the end of three months, babies begin "cooing" -- a happy, gentle, repetitive, sing-song vocalization.
- Baby talk at 6 months. At 6 months, your baby begins babbling with different sounds. For example, your baby may say "ba-ba" or "da-da." By the end of the sixth or seventh month, babies respond to their own names, recognize their native language, and use their tone of voice to tell you they're happy or upset.
Some eager parents interpret a string of "da-da" babbles as their baby's first words -- "daddy!" But babbling at this age is usually still made up of random syllables without real meaning or comprehension. - Baby talk at 9 months. After 9 months, babies can understand a few basic words like "no" and "bye-bye." They also may begin to use a wider range of consonant sounds and tones of voice.
- Baby talk at 12-18 months. Most babies say a few simple words like "mama" and "dadda" by the end of 12 months -- and now know what they're saying. They respond to -- or at least understand, if not obey -- your short, one-step requests such as, "Please put that down."
- Baby talk at 18 months. Babies at this age say several simple words and can point to people, objects, and body parts you name for them. They repeat words or sounds they hear you say, like the last word in a sentence. But they often leave off endings or beginnings of words. For example, they may say "daw" for "dog" or "noo-noo's" for "noodles.
" - Baby talk at 2 years. By age 2, babies string together a few words in short phrases of two to four words, such as "Mommy bye-bye" or "me milk." They're learning that words mean more than objects like "cup" -- they also mean abstract ideas like "mine."
- Baby talk at 3 years. By the time your baby is age 3, their vocabulary expands rapidly, and "make-believe" play spurs an understanding of symbolic and abstract language like "now," feelings like "sad," and spatial concepts like "in."
Can You Teach Babies to Talk?
Babies understand what you're saying long before they can clearly speak. Many babies learning to talk use only one or two words at first, even when they understand 25 or more.
You can help your baby learn to talk if you:
- Watch. Your baby may reach both arms up to say they want to be picked up, hand you a toy to say they want to play, or push food off their plate to say they've had enough. Smile, make eye contact, and respond to encourage these early, nonverbal attempts at baby talk.
- Listen. Pay attention to your baby's cooing and babbling, and coo and babble those same sounds right back to your baby. Babies try to imitate sounds their parents are making and to vary pitch and tone to match the language heard around them. So be patient and give your baby lots of time to "talk" to you.
- Praise. Smile and applaud even the smallest or most confusing attempts at baby talk. Babies learn the power of speech by the reactions of adults around them.
- Imitate. Babies love to hear their parents' voices. And when parents talk to them it helps speech develop. The more you talk their "baby talk" with them, using short, simple but correct words, such as "dog" when your baby says "daw," the more babies will keep trying to talk.
- Elaborate. If your baby points to the table and makes noise, don't just givethem more noodles. Instead, point to the noodles and say, "Do you want some more noodles? These noodles taste good with cheese, don't they?"
- Narrate.
Talk about what you're doing as you wash, dress, feed, and change your baby -- "Let's put on these blue socks now" or "I'm cutting up your chicken for you" -- so your baby connects your speech to these objects and experiences. - Hang in there. Even when you don't understand what your baby is saying, keep trying. Gently repeat back what you think is being said, and ask if that's right. Keep offering your loving attention so your baby feels rewarded for trying to talk.
- Let your child lead. During playtime, follow your child's attention and interests to show that communication is a two-way game of talking and listening, leading, and following.
- Play. Encourage children to play, pretend, and imagine out loud to develop verbal skills as they become toddlers.
- Read aloud. Lifelong readers come from young children who have plenty of fun, relaxing experiences of being read to out loud.
If You're Concerned About a Speech Delay
Watch for any sign of a major speech delay in your baby, and talk with your doctor if you sense there's a problem.
A speech delay can happen for a number of reasons, but the earlier a speech problem in babies is diagnosed, the more time you'll have to correct it and help your child reach their full potential before school age. After consulting with your pediatrician, here are things to do to help with delayed speech:
- Have a hearing test done. As many as three out of 1,000 newborns have hearing loss, which can cause delayed speech development. Most states require a hearing screening in the hospital right after birth. Take your baby in for a full hearing exam by age 3 months if they don't pass the initial hearing screening.
- See a speech-language pathologist. A SLP can diagnose and treat specific speech, language, or voice disorders that delay speech. Treatment may include giving parents tips and games to improve speech problems in babies and improve a child's language skills.
- Consider developmental screening. Up to 17% of children in the U.S.
have a developmental or behavioral disability such as autism spectrum disorder or cognitive disability. Ask your baby's doctor about screening for these developmental problems, which can cause speech delays.
What's the first step for babies learning to talk? Encourage your baby's first words with your frequent cooing, babbling, talking, and singing. Keep responding positively and showing you care. When it comes to baby talk, that's the best building block.
Ultimate Word list: Words to teach a One Year Old (free checklist)
by Alexa
When I went to the pediatrician for my son’s one-year-old checklist I was surprised by the question the doctor asked me.
I was prepared for the doctor to ask me how so many questions but you know what the main question was that I was surprised with? How many words does your one-year-old say?”
By the time your baby is 12 months old (one year old) he or she probably can say between one to three words.
Before their 2nd birthday, they usually will say about 50 words.
Is your toddler talking enough?
What does enough mean? how many words should you teach a One Year Old?
Should you work on extra activities to teach your toddler to talk?
Language development is key during this year, but if you are asking what words should they know or what to focus on, this handy checklist will be your best friend!
Download the PDF below or folow along the guide.
Before we get into the actual list, let me explain a few things so that you don’t freak out if your child is not talking like your next-door neighbor’s daughter and you can have the right expectations.
Your toddler might not be saying much but he/she can definitely understand more than he/she can say.
You may also notice other types of communication such as pointing, signing, and cooing. These are all forms of communication and great milestones to saying complete words that will eventually turn into sentences.
If your child is doing great with signing, continue to encourage that along with the words to give him/her the tools to communicate with you.
How many words can a one year old understand?
One thing is to understand the words and another is to speak them.
At 12 months old your toddler can understand about 50 words but can only be able to say 2-3 words.
How many words should a 1 year-old say?
From your toddler’s first birthday until the second they will go from saying 2-3 words to saying about 50 words!
What is a late talker?
By the age of 20 months, children should have about 20 words, according to DeBlasio — 2 years old is a crucial time for language.
“By age 2, a child should have at least 50 words and be starting to put words together,” DeBlasio says. “Most kids will have a language explosion between 18-24 months, but generally, I worry if I’m not hearing about 20 words by the time a child reaches 20 months.”
Care.
com
But it could be a lot difficult to know if they’re actually hitting the right milestones. The reason is, every kid develops at their own pace, and so the only way to help them pick up vocabulary words is to introduce words to them daily.
Most toddlers learn to say nouns, or names of people, places, and things first. Your toddler will also needs words for actions, locations, and descriptions (adjectives/adverbs) so that he can combine these to form phrases. Use everyday games and activities to encourage the following words.
words to teach a one year oldNaming familiar objects – They will begin to be able to name some familiar objects between 12 and 18 months.
TEACH YOUR ONE YEAR OLD COMMON NOUNS
Teach words that they see and play with every day.
Make a habit of point to things daily and repeat them. It may sound silly, but to make anything impactful you have to do that. The more your child will hear the word, the quicker he will comprehend it, and be able to repeat with you.
For instance, say sit-sit when you want your kid to sit down. Similarly, while pointing toward pictures of a ball, say ball-ball.
Below is a video of the technique I used to encourage talking. We start with the first letter sound and encourage to repeat the rest of the word as I point the object.
- Ball
- Book
- Train
- Bike
- Car
- Truck
- Boat
- Plane
- Baby
- Bowl
- Spoon
- Sock
- Shoe
- Shirt
- Pants
- Hat
- Star
- House
- Tree
- Bath
- Chair
- Table
- Bed
- Blanket
- Cookie
- Cracker
- Cheese
- Apple
- Banana
- Milk
- Juice
- Water
- More
- please
- Thank you
- hi (or hello)
- bye-bye
- Again
- sorry
- Yes
- No
TEACH YOUR ONE YEAR OLD COLORS
from 12 months to about 16 months your toddler will be able to identify correctly primary colors.
They might not be able to say them until after but you can start teaching colors and their names at one year old.
- Red
- Blue
- Yellow
- Green
- Eat
- Drink
- Go
- Stop
- Walk
- Sleep/night-night
- Wash
- Kiss
- Open
- Close
- Broken
- Play
- Want
- Hug
- Give (“gimme”)
- All done
- Help
- Shake
- Look
- Sit
- Blow
- Cry
- Throw
- Come (“C’mon”)
TEACH YOUR ONE YEAR OLD LOCATION WORDS (PREPOSITIONS)
- Up
- Down
- On
- Off
TEACH YOUR ONE YEAR OLD WORDS THAT DESCRIBE (Adjectives/Adverbs)
- Big
- Little
- Hot
- Cold
- Funny
- Dirty
- Clean
- Gentle
- Wet
- Soft
- Fast
- Slow
TEACH YOUR ONE YEAR OLD QUANTITY WORDS
As an early start to words you can also integrate sign language.
Signs are easier to mimic and if you accompany them with the words you can reduce frustration during the toddler years.
- All
- None
- More
- Numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
TEACH YOUR ONE YEAR OLD PRONOUNS
- Me
- Mine
- My
- I
- You
TEACH YOUR ONE YEAR OLD ANIMAL NAMES
Most one year olds can identify animals by their sounds (example “neigh”), continue to associate sounds with the name of each animal when playing or using a learning binder. This will encourage them to use the word and not just the sounds (example: Horse).
Children do well-imitating speech when it involves movement or actions. This is the best way to encourage speech. There’s actually a reason behind why children learn to make animal sounds earlier than saying actual words. It’s because it is really simple for kids to learn.
Here are a few animal names you can encourage learning. We do this teaching through our learning binder which combines animal sounds, names and interactive games.
- Dog
- Cat
- Fish
- Bird
- Duck
- Cow
- Horse
- Bunny
- Bear
- Pig
- Lion
- Elephant
- Giraffe
- Zebra
- Monkey
- Chicken
- Bee
- Frog
Print out the PDF Checklist!
If your toddler is not talking enough, and you are feeling they are not talking as expected, Try some of these speech games recommended by a speech pathology or you can use the learning binder to encourage speech with our interactive games. If you are concerned and think your child needs some speech therapy assistance, reach out to your pediatrician as they may be able to refer you to an early intervention speech program.
What’s next?
Wondering if your child is on track with all of his/her milestones? Do you know exactly what you should teach this year to give them a headstart when entering PreK? Find out more
200 Words by Two Years: 8 Principles Every Mom Needs to Know About Speech Development
The topic of speech development is often shrouded in myths, speculation and prejudice, but which of these really exist? Is it true that 200 words by two years is real? Is it normal if a child cannot construct a simple sentence at this age? There are some important rules and practical advice given by our expert.
The first and one of the main principles: the baby should be interested
For a child at an early age, any cognitive activity is a game. Try to turn everything into a mini game to keep him interested in everything that happens. Being involved in the processes around, the child will quickly begin to voice his thoughts and pronounce what he thinks.
The second principle: provoke the child to speak
It is necessary to create conditions for the child in which it is simply impossible to remain silent! Start with gestures. But remember that you can not stop at them. Ask your child to voice their desires. You need to talk not only during your classes, but constantly. Talk about everything you do: about a walk in the park, about breakfast, how you dress, what the weather is like outside.
Do not miss
-
Don't miss
Baby Fitness: 4 Super Exercises for Mom and Baby
The third principle: a child imitates an adult
The kid likes to repeat everything after mom and dad.
This will help him to speak faster! You can play with dolls, roll the ball into the goal, whatever. The main thing: together! And do not forget to say everything you do and wait for the baby to do the same. It is important and interesting for him to do “like mom or dad”, and also to say about it.
Fourth principle: develop your ear for speech!
Speech is, in fact, only the pinnacle of development. And in order to speak, your baby must hear and understand you. It depends both on the physical ability to distinguish sounds, and on the skill of speech hearing. Speech hearing is the understanding of the relationship between sound and meaning. Gradually, the child learns not only to differentiate sounds, but also to correlate with the processes around, understand requests, consciously build syllables and words, feeling their semantic purpose. The initial exercise can be a simple rattle game!
Don't miss it
The fifth principle is to breathe properly!
You really need to be able to breathe “correctly”.
And this skill is also acquired. Therefore, for the development of speech, breath control is also very necessary. Air is the building material of sound. If you teach a child to breathe correctly, measuredly, it will be easy for him to speak. Singing your favorite songs will help a lot!
In the future, your baby will automatically train speech breathing, that is, to correctly combine inhalation and exhalation. Sometimes, if the necessary skill is not formed on time, a specialist may advise special breathing exercises.
Sixth principle: remember fine motor skills!
When a child learns to do something with his hands, new neural connections are formed in his head. And without it there can be no normal development. So don't forget about fine motor skills!
And it will be even better if all your games are story-based: draw, sculpt, make applications and animate them, invent stories for the characters.
Do not miss
-
Do not miss
5 habits of toddlers that you have to put up with
Seventh principle: remember what not to do!
• Do not demand! And do not wish for too much at once! It won't help.
Or make it worse.
• No gadgets! Tablets, TVs, phones and other appliances are needed in moderation.
• Do not deprive of motivation! In families with overattentive parents, children lose the desire to speak - after all, they are already understood!
• Don't talk! And don't break your tongue. Do you remember? The child repeats. And repeats absolutely everything. And while you are melting with emotion, he is at a loss: how can he communicate with this world?
• Do not wait! If you see that something is not working for the baby, help him! And if you cannot solve the problem yourself, contact a specialist. Different problems look the same - the child is silent. But it is a specialist who can determine the cause and really help.
Eighth principle: norms are not invented by doctors!
They are “peeped” from nature and brought together by specialists so that parents can correctly and timely assess the development of the baby.
It is important that the speech does not begin with the first "mom", but with the first cry! In the first three months.
3 months
• Baby's cry should be different; when he wants to eat, he is alone; when he just missed his mother - another;
• The child must respond to sounds and look for their source;
• The baby has the first smile in his life.
3-6 months
• The long-awaited hum appears. Over time, it will become babble. And by the way, if cooing is just drawling vowels: a-a-gu, gee, gee, a-gee. That babble is syllables. Bababa, mom - that's all he is! And also: the baby has a laugh!
6-9 months
• Babble becomes more varied and should not fade away! It seems that the child is almost "talking".
• The kid begins to play nursery rhymes: these are “palmies”, “birds flew”, “coo-coo”. This is a step towards the first conscious syllables! If the baby plays, then he understands your speech.
• Understands simple requests and questions, such as Where's Mom? Where is Dad? Give me a pen! It is forbidden!
• And yes! The child responds to his name.
1 year
• Baby says first words! If two months ago the babble “mamamama” meant nothing, then today mom is an appeal specifically for you!
• Frequent words: this is a woman, uncle, na, give, bang, ko. And not necessarily a "cat" - now you can just ko or coca. And "pi" can mean dad, and drink, and a button! This is about 10 such words per year.
Attention! If the baby continues to express himself only with gestures and is capricious at the same time, contact a specialist!
2 years
• The child understands the two-step instruction: Take the cat! Play with her!
• The first simple phrase appears! Mom, drink! Mom, go! Chu pi! Give me the ball! albeit not quite true, but the phrase!
• The child's vocabulary is almost 200 words.
But it is important to understand what these words are. Of course, we are immediately presented with a list of adult compound nouns and verbs from Ozhegov's dictionary. But it is not so.
Initially, these can be “lightweight” words, for example, kisa, ava, mumuka, and such word forms as “guyat” instead of “walk”, “kovat” instead of “bed”, “syapka” instead of “hat”, etc. . Gradually, there are less and less “lightened” words, “bye-bye” is replaced by an adult “sleep”, “bibika” - “car”. Rather, of course, “masina”, but someone will say this word right away!
Attention! If by the age of 2 the child does not have a simple phrase, contact a specialist!
3 years
• Causal relationships appear. For example: “I don’t eat soup because you cooked it wrong!”
• Offers become expanded. The kid can express any thought in words!
Of course, all children are individual, and slight deviations in terms are possible.
And most importantly: do not forget to praise your baby! Don't miss out on his little victories. Let them be yours too!
Expert
Tatyana Batysheva
Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Honored Doctor of Russia, Member of the Presidium of the All-Russian Society of Neurologists, Director of the Scientific and Practical Center for Child Psychoneurology of the Moscow Health Department.
Founder of the project "Big Mama" @bolshaya__mama
What impression did this article make on you?
20 reading texts for children aged 5-6-7-8
A child who has learned to put sounds into syllables, syllables into words, and words into sentences needs to improve his reading skills through systematic training. But reading is a rather laborious and monotonous activity, and many children lose interest in it. Therefore, we offer texts of small size , the words in them are divided into syllables.
First, read the work to the child yourself, and if it is long, you can read its beginning. This will interest the child. Then invite him to read the text. After each work, questions are given that help the child to understand what they have read and comprehend the basic information that they have learned from the text. After discussing the text, suggest reading it again.
Mo-lo-dets Vo-va
Ma-ma and Vo-va gu-la-li.
In-va ran and fell.
It hurts no-ha, but Vo-va does not cry.
Wow!
B. Korsunskaya
Answer questions .
1. What happened to Vova?
2. What made him sick?
3. Why is Vova doing well?
Clever Bo-beak
Co-nya and co-ba-ka Bo-beak gu-la-li.
So-nya played-ra-la with a doll.
So So-nya in-be-zha-la to-my, and the doll for-would-la.
Bo-beek found a doll-lu and brought it to So-ne.
B. Korsunskaya
Answer the questions.
1. Who did Sonya walk with?
2. Where did Sonya leave her doll?
3. Who brought the doll home?
The bird made a nest on a bush. De-ti our nest-up and took off on the ground.
- Look, Vasya, three birds!
In the morning, de-ti came, and the nest-before it was empty. It would be a pity.
L. Tolstoy
Answer questions.
1. What did the children do with the nest?
2. Why was the nest empty in the morning?
3. Did the children do well? How would you do?
4. Do you think this work is a fairy tale, a story or a poem?
Pete and Mi-sha had a horse. They began to argue: whose horse. Did they tear each other apart.
- Give me - my horse.
- No, you give me - the horse is not yours, but mine.
Mother came, took a horse, and nobody's horse became.
L. Tolstoy
Answer the questions.
1. Why did Petya and Misha quarrel?
2. What did mother do?
3. Did the children play horse well? Why do you think so
?
9000
035
9000
Filwords for reading, attention here.
It will be interesting for children to read selected texts, they affect the child's emotional world, develop his moral feelings and imagination . Children will get acquainted with the works of L. Tolstoy, K. Ushinsky, A. Barto, S. Mikhalkov, E. Blaginina, V. Bianchi, E. Charushin, A. Usachyov, E. Uspensky, G. Snegiryov, G. Oster, R. Rozhdestvensky, as well as fairy tales of different nations.
It is advisable to show children the genre features of poems, stories and fairy tales using the example of these works.
Fairy tale is a genre of oral fiction containing events unusual in the everyday sense (fantastic, wonderful or worldly) and distinguished by a special compositional and stylistic construction. In fairy tales there are fairy-tale characters, talking animals, unprecedented miracles happen.
Poem is a short poetic work in verse. The verses are read smoothly and musically, they have rhythm, meter and rhyme.
