Wonderful Ones: Helping Baby Learn Speech and Vocabulary

Many parents and caregivers wonder, what can my baby do to learn speech and vocabulary? What does baby do to learn and how can I help? At Ready Set Read, we want learning to be fun, so that baby learns how fun reading can be as he or she grows.  In addition to the rhymes, songs, and books we provide in our postings and at classes, take a look at this list from the Association for Library Service to Children, which outlines suggested stages in learning vocabulary at various ages.

• Birth:  Cries, burps, sneezes, coughs.
• 2 months:  Vowel-like sounds: goo, aah, ooh, and others.
• 4 - 6 months: Babbling (“mammama”…“dada”).
• 9 - 12 months: Advanced babbling, with sentence-like phrasing and rhythm.
• 12 months: Around one year old, your child will say his or her first real word. He or she will start with single syllables, then may double some syllables, as in “wawa” or “mama.” Your child will continue to say only one word at a time for several more months.
• 18 - 24 months:  Between a year and a half and two years old, your child will begin to talk in
  “telegraphic speech.” This sounds like, “Want cookie” or “Me milk.” You can
  extend your child’s talk by saying, “You want a cookie?” or “You want me to give
  you some milk?” This will help increase your child’s vocabulary.

 We had fun at Wonderful Ones this week with these rhymes:

Five Fingers Rhyme
Five fingers on this hand,
Five fingers on that.
A dear little nose,
A mouth like a rose.
Two eyes, two ears,
And ten little toes,
And that’s the way the baby grows.


What Do We Do? Rhyme
What do we do when baby wakes up?
We laugh and play to start the day,
And clap, clap, clap our hands.
We clap, clap, clap our hands.
We clap, clap, clap our hands.
We laugh and play to start the day,
And clap, clap, clap our hands.


Books we read at Wonderful Ones:

Bouncing Babies by Mike Brownlow
Describes what various babies do from morning until night.
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Baby Loves Hugs and Kisses by Michael Lawrence
After receiving wonderful hugs and kisses from his parents and grandparents, Baby tries to hug and kiss the family pets.
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