Teaching Children Language

What are the things many parents seem to get wrong in developing the language skills of their children? Some personal observations.

If someone doesn’t know a single word, how do you teach them the first words and what they mean? You cannot use words to explain what a word means when they have no vocabulary. That is the challenge you face with children learning their first words.

Disclaimer: I am a software developer by trade and not a child psychologist or anything like that. So you have to take what I write with a grain of salt. However, I have always had a keen interest in observing humans. Perhaps that is because I studied artificial intelligence and machine learning at university and always had an interest in how the human mind works.

I am writing this in part because I cannot remember any of the books I read on parenting or any of the advice I ever got really spelled out the details of how you teach children language. A lot of people will just tell you “talk a lot to your kids.”

Sure, almost any method will likely let your child develop language eventually. But with the wrong approach, it may take much longer than necessary.

Don’t Use “I” and “You”

If you think about it, you will probably realize that concepts such as me and you are quite complex to convey to a complete beginner. If you refer to your child with “you” they can…