Educational Inspiration

If you have noticed that your child isn't speaking with as many words as other children of the same age, you might be looking for ways to help them build their language skills.  You might look at google or visit the pediatrician and get some great advice like "name objects for your child."  Don't doubt it, that's good advice.  Kids need to learn the names for things, but here's the catch.  You can't start walking around naming things that your child's attention wasn't drawn to in the first place.  It won't help and you will make yourself nuts trying to do that all day.  So let's talk about how to naturally work on language skills during the day.  It's easy.  Just follow your child's lead. Instead of thinking up ways to create a scenario that will get them talking, use the opportunities that are already presenting themselves.  For instance, you take your child to the bathroom to wash their hands after a splendid dinner of spaghet

Learning new words is a big, important deal.  Teaching them doesn't have to be.  After a long day at school for kids and a busy day full of adult responsibilities for parents, the last thing anyone wants at the end of the day is a structured lesson on word usage.  Parents often ask how they can help their kids at home, but the answer is often filled with instructions on timed readings, memorizing spelling words, and monotonous practice activities.  Supporting your child's vocabulary learning doesn't have to be this way.  Relax.  It's a lot easier than you think. Why is vocabulary so important?  Based on lots of dazzling research by big researcher names (Ehri, Justice, Rosenthal, Beck, McKeown, etc) we know that good vocabulary leads to good comprehension and to be a good learner, you need to be able to understand, right?  The better your child's vocabulary is in preschool, the more likely they are to be awesome readers and comprehenders later on.  Starting early