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Nurturing a Love of Language: Strategies for Enhancing Children’s Vocabulary
By helping children build their vocabulary, we can give them the tools they need to succeed.
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein
You’ve probably heard of “one-sided love,” but “one-sided talks” may be a new term to you. First, one-sided talks are much sweeter and more lovely than one-sided love. When you take your baby for the first time and share your love, exhaustion, and pain with them from one side, the same emotions float in your eyes as gratitude. The child stares blankly at your face. After a few months, they respond with a smile, and after a year with sweet sounds. For two years, they address you with their sweet dialect and turn your pain into a smile. These one-sided talks are unknown to them, but these are the sounds that nurture them and fill them with love.
Until children can speak, being active and having one-sided talks will build up their early vocabulary. As they get older, staying active and trying to give information through the discovery process will help. For example, if they have some favourite animals, you tell a story about them. As soon as you start the story by naming the first animal…
