From the first days of Life babies learn from everything – from what they see, they hear, they feel. They listen to voices, to music or sounds of animals. They look in books, different pictures and just watch around. They feel different surfaces, examining objects. From the beginning they absorb absolutely everything like a sponge and later you can see the result, though sometimes you could think it was useless (and may be hopeless in some cases) to show or repeat something 200 times as there was no reply to your question “Where is a cat?” Or “Where is a dog?” or “What is it?” However, as soon as you get feedback and see how your little one reacts or what he makes or shows, you understand what kind of great work was done and not for nothing.
All parents are waiting when their darling will say the first word; almost each couple has a kind of funny fight which word will be the first - “ mama” or “papa”. And of course each family tries to invest in their baby as much as possible (reading or telling a lot of different poems, stories, rhymes, playing various toys, playing musical instruments, etc. ) by which they want to build at first a word, then speech of their baby, language and later culture.
Of course, it starts from small things but it is very important not to lose the time and this age when children want to know, and can learn. Moreover, each education process can be done interesting, funny, entertaining through games, just playing …
In this very way I try to teach my baby to some words every day . It doesn’t have a fast tempo since she is only 17 months now and there should be no hurry but better only fundamental and proper method as repeating, repeating, repeating and adding new units with a time. However, I decided to try it and rather satisfied with results after some time. Before I go to the main idea of our teaching-learning-playing process I would like to mention that Karolina is bilingual (even trilingual, I should say)as her father comes from Germany and I am Russian, when we are together we speak English, and right now I am responsible for Russian language (though I speak a little bit German too) whereas my husband doesn’t speak my language and deals with German and English for the present moment - and this is his task with German.
In Russia I bought several lotto games where pictures from different thematic are used: wild or domestic animals, clothes, vegetables and fruit, furniture, etc. The real age for this game goes around 3 years, but I wanted to use it in other way. I took the small cards and stick them everywhere around the house, each room has its own thematic: kitchen is connected with food stuff, in bedroom I hang up cards with animals, corridor is full of cards with clothes, living room is with furniture and so on. I do not use all cards at once. At first I stuck 2-3 units, then I add 1-2 more, after I changed some of them on new or such. From time to time we go to these cards (not obligatory every day, it must be easy and not stressful for both), I take her on hands asking to show something, and I see how she thinks and looks for this or that card. It is such an amazing difference between first days when we started only with the lotto cards – I took her finger and we moved together towards the picture. It was much joy for her to catch animal, for example. And now I see how fast she moves her head and replies at once(I mean showing the card with finger because she cannot speak yet or she gives me answer in the form of sounds, for animals, when I ask her “What is this?”), smiling and being happy that she gave correct answer and mummy appreciated it . In the kitchen she likes to find the apple-picture and real apple or other fruit/veggie, for example.
Even if Karolina doesn’t tell me these words from the cards, I see the basis and great success now and I am sure that as soon as she starts speaking (and it is not a secret that bilingual/trilingual needs a little bit more time for that) she will do it one by one. It is like her active and passive knowledge, where the latter will become active soon. We are just waiting, and our fight now is which language she will start speaking first.
P.S. By the way, it is also a good source of learning my language for my husband, since he can do it together with our daughter. May be someone will find it also useful for their children and partners.
By Dina Proskurina
"stay at home" Mum
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