children.webmd.com— Children's vocabulary often booms in the second year of life, and new research may show how that happens.
Aug 4, 2007View in Crawl 4
A Toddler's mind is like a sieve. They retain a lot more than you give them credit for. I know my kids have shocked me with some of the things remember or simply how they phrase things when speaking.
"This is why you should talk to you child normally. I don't plan on doing the stupid 'baby talk' with my children."Yeah, that's what I thought at first too. But when you actually have a child, it's really hard not to because they are so precious, and you just want to be as nice as possible to them.
I have to agree, spending quality time with your toddler and reading to them everyday as well as other activities, (flash cards, puzzles, ect.) are the best way for your child to get a head start in learning. Another thing that is great in developing your child's mental and motor skills is music. Ever since I setup my home studio all my child wants to do is play the drums. He's been doing that since he was 10 months, (he's 18 months now) and now I never get a chance to play lol. What I noticed was, now that he's starting to talk when we sing, he will try and sing along with us! The best part is that he can actually hit the notes, not even close to perfectly. Getting your child into music either by listening or playing is a great way to improve their hand/eye coordination, as well as learning speech.
"...don't do that "you're special" s**t either"....Not sure I agree with you on that one....I tell my kid all the time that he's clever, wonderful and all those other words. Maybe it will have long term effects but he definitely feeds off the praise and is more willing to continue trying new things out. Plus, the big smile I get makes it very worthwhile.
From someone named "Singularitarian" you'd think there'd be at least a little understanding of the decreasing neuroplasticity that comes with age. Seriously, Singu, you'd better learn a little more neurophysiology if you want to survive.
I was really disappointed because I wanted to know a bit more about the mathematics. Pop science journals are pretty insulting, just like English class, in that they don't really give you any reason for this. All this guy has said is that he has a "mathematical model" that shows that when they happen to "be learning more than one word at a time, and they must be learning a greater number of difficult or moderate words than easy ones", the "vocabulary explosion happens". (1) the first antecedent - i.e. that they are learning more than one word at a time - is ill-defined, and could be construed to equal the outcome - i.e. the vocabulary explosion, and (2) how did he encode difficulty and moderation of words into his model? WTF? Doesn't he realize that, even if he goes into an explanation of the MECHANISM of the modeled phenomenon and it's over our heads we'll learn a lot from it anyway? Once again, I am insulted by the "scientific" press.
nnscottAug 5, 2007
A Toddler's mind is like a sieve. They retain a lot more than you give them credit for. I know my kids have shocked me with some of the things remember or simply how they phrase things when speaking.
raytownAug 5, 2007
"This is why you should talk to you child normally. I don't plan on doing the stupid 'baby talk' with my children."Yeah, that's what I thought at first too. But when you actually have a child, it's really hard not to because they are so precious, and you just want to be as nice as possible to them.
raytownAug 5, 2007
I have to agree, spending quality time with your toddler and reading to them everyday as well as other activities, (flash cards, puzzles, ect.) are the best way for your child to get a head start in learning. Another thing that is great in developing your child's mental and motor skills is music. Ever since I setup my home studio all my child wants to do is play the drums. He's been doing that since he was 10 months, (he's 18 months now) and now I never get a chance to play lol. What I noticed was, now that he's starting to talk when we sing, he will try and sing along with us! The best part is that he can actually hit the notes, not even close to perfectly. Getting your child into music either by listening or playing is a great way to improve their hand/eye coordination, as well as learning speech.
rixtaAug 6, 2007
"...don't do that "you're special" s**t either"....Not sure I agree with you on that one....I tell my kid all the time that he's clever, wonderful and all those other words. Maybe it will have long term effects but he definitely feeds off the praise and is more willing to continue trying new things out. Plus, the big smile I get makes it very worthwhile.
sporky023Aug 6, 2007
From someone named "Singularitarian" you'd think there'd be at least a little understanding of the decreasing neuroplasticity that comes with age. Seriously, Singu, you'd better learn a little more neurophysiology if you want to survive.
sporky023Aug 6, 2007
Like any good sieve, children often lose a lot of the finer stuff.
sporky023Aug 6, 2007
I was really disappointed because I wanted to know a bit more about the mathematics. Pop science journals are pretty insulting, just like English class, in that they don't really give you any reason for this. All this guy has said is that he has a "mathematical model" that shows that when they happen to "be learning more than one word at a time, and they must be learning a greater number of difficult or moderate words than easy ones", the "vocabulary explosion happens". (1) the first antecedent - i.e. that they are learning more than one word at a time - is ill-defined, and could be construed to equal the outcome - i.e. the vocabulary explosion, and (2) how did he encode difficulty and moderation of words into his model? WTF? Doesn't he realize that, even if he goes into an explanation of the MECHANISM of the modeled phenomenon and it's over our heads we'll learn a lot from it anyway? Once again, I am insulted by the "scientific" press.