“OOOOOOOO”,”IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII”,”EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”....are you someone passing by my home ??..then you are sure to hear these monosyllables repeated over and over again relentlessly. Oh no..please do not jump to a wrong conclusion that this could be due to domestic violence....”S” is too much of a good person for all that .Of course I would not dare to raise my hands against him..so the only other option is also ruled out. Breaking the suspense(???) , it is because of the coaching of a mum to her daughter ..Itz Me!!!!
My daughter, who has stepped into her toddler years recently, has been needing a bit of pepping up and help in improving her verbal communication skills. It is quite surprising that she is taking her own sweet time in this area because both the people whom she has known for her entire life and who have introduced her into this world ,need to be reminded often to shut their mouths and their nonstop yackety-yak(ing).
With a bit of help and inputs from the professionals in that area, I am able to see some steady progress in her. I wanted to share whatever little I have learnt from my experience with the rest of the mums who might need some techniques and tools to deal with similar (not so serious)problems. First of all, I am being told that this is a common problem with kids exposed to multilingual household. I am still having to question the veracity of this popular statement. Anyway our family also falls into the category of being conversant with and speaking in more than one language at home.
So the first step forward is to confine our day to day talks to one single language preferably our own mother tongues. This way our child is being given an opportunity to have a strong foundation laid in one language. Once this has been established well then getting acquainted with the secondary or more languages becomes relatively easier for them.
Often communication between the parents and children are encouraged to happen face to face. This way kids get to observe our lip movements and they eventually try to mimic the same. So we have to get down to their eye level whenever we talk to them and utter the words at a slow pace so that it could be easily followed.
The sentences that we use for the expression of our thoughts have to be as short and simple as possible. Preferably not more than 3 words in a sentence.
For ex: instead of saying “why don’t you remove your shoes” we could say “shoes off”
Instead of staying “ you should wear your shirt”, it could be put forth as “ shirt on”
Instead of staying “ you should wear your shirt”, it could be put forth as “ shirt on”
Lots and lots of encouragement and appreciation need to be given to the little ones. Whenever they speak to adults they have to be made to feel very important and listened to. This not only offers them confidence to pursue their newly acquired skill, but also infuses a sense of pride in them simply because:
Their WORDS mean a lot to their parents who in turn mean a WORLD to the kids themselves!!!!
Stick on to routines that are very regular and try and use the same words as a part of the routine over and over again. For instance, every day after lunch, we could read out the same book to our kids and try and point out the same set of objects in the book day after day. Familiarity and repetition with a definite set of words goes a long way in stimulating the speech process.
Online games like the ones below come to our aid as well:
http://www.fisher-price.com/us/fun/games/phonics/default.asp
Real world objects and their association with names for identification accelerate the pace of learning. Instead of monotonously uttering the names of vegetables, fruits and other objects, a trip to a nearby local supermarket where the kids can see and touch every such vegetable and fruit and thus learning to identify and relate those using their names prove to be a fruitful technique.
I am no expert in this field nor do I do R&D in this area.. These are a few ideas from experts which have proven to be of some help to me. These could or could not work for others. Please do not hold me responsible for any kind of outcomes...Common Sense as well as trial and error methodology overrules everything!!!!!
