Helping Babies and Toddlers Learn Language (Part 2)

  •  January 19, 2024

In Part 1 of this article series, I recommended a new approach towards helping babies and toddlers in their language development.  It involves teaching them from infancy in a deliberate and methodical manner, and emphasizes teaching the written word along with using personalized content.  Benefits are also numerous, including earlier communication, parental bonding, and laying strong foundations for the child to learn to read.

For this new approach to work, here are some of the key things to keep in mind when implementing it.

Parent’s Role is Critical

It is imperative that the child’s parent or caregiver is fully involved in the  teaching. Firstly, we are talking about teaching our little ones at a very early age – pre-kindergarten, and even pre-daycare – so the teaching role cannot really be outsourced to others in a meaningful way.

Secondly, we are creating very personalized content based on the child’s every day life and surroundings, and no one is in a better position to do that than the parent or caregiver. 

But here’s the good news for you parents: not only will you find that it doesn’t require much time and energy, you will probably like doing it so much it will become a regular habit.  More on that later.

Best Time to Teach:  0-2 Years

Early learning experts say that ages 0-5, especially 0-3, are critical periods in a child’s brain development as brain plasticity is the highest, so early stimulation helps to shape the brain architecture, for example by increasing the neural connections and pathways between brain cells. No arguments there. 

However, from my point of view, the critical period is actually 0-2 years, and the key reason is not because it helps brain development.  I believe that 0-2 years is the best time to teach simply because it is the easiest time to teach, as it is the easiest time to get the child’s cooperation and attention.

During the first 24 months, there are limited activities babies and toddlers can engage in due to their limited physical and cognitive abilities. For example, during the first year, sitting and crawling is pretty much all they can do, and learning at this age is primarily through seeing and listening while being relatively immobile. This lack of mobility is why their interest in absorbing information while seated is possibly the highest it will ever be.

From around age 2 onwards comes the time when the little ones start running, climbing and jumping everywhere and demanding to play with [insert favorite toy of the day] all the time. Teaching them words etc. can still be done, but it starts to become more and more challenging as more and more things compete for their attention.

This is why I believe that the best time to teach words is before the child becomes mobile and before strong and specific interests in other things develop. In the case of my son, Kyler, the many interests he currently has (at 3 years) include dinosaurs, Pokemon, and Plants vs Zombies and playing with related toys.  I can only imagine how much harder it would be if I only started to try teaching him words now.

On the other hand, if a strong interest and confidence in reading has been developed before that period, the child will retain an interest in reading as he will find that he can use books to learn more about what it is they are interested in.  So for Kyler, in addition to playing with toys, he also spends a lot of time reading about different PokĂŠmon and Plants vs Zombies characters, often proudly teaching me facts about them I didn’t know.

Importance of Personalized Content

As parents, how many times have we bought products for our child where he would love it for the first few days, and even weeks, but then would lose interest soon after.  Unfortunately, that is the norm with almost all products, which are static (never-changing) in nature, and impersonal.

The key to success in teaching very young children is whether we are able to continue to retain their interest and attention – not for just a few days or a few weeks, but for at least many months, and even years.

How do we do that?

For me, I created a mobile app (Little Reader) to help me capture and display personalized content for Kyler.  I started teaching Kyler with it when he was 8 months old, yet even as he turned three, he would ask for his Little Reader lessons almost daily, and often multiple times a day.  During that period, I would most often be the one putting an end to the lessons, overriding his protests to continue. 

I attribute Kyler’s interest to the fact that all the content he views on Little Reader is personalized.  The content is based primarily on his own personal world, where the vocabulary, phrases/sentences and short stories I teach are based on what he experiences in his daily life, and accompanied by pictures and videos which I personally take for him (typically with himself also in them).

Personalized content becomes increasingly important the older a child gets, due to the increasing number of interests he develops as he grows, as mentioned above.  With personalized content, his other interests can be used to maintain his interest in his lessons, by including content that involves those interests.

I strongly believe, therefore, that making personalized content for your child produces literally the best lessons in the world ever created for your child, simply because they were created by you, and specifically for your child.

Not As Much Work as you Think!

We are fortunate as parents to be living in an age where technology can help us teach our children much more easily, efficiently, and effectively compared to even just a few years ago.

For example, back in 2005 when I was first creating content to teach my daughter Felicity, I would take pictures using my digital camera, then transfer them the PC for display (initially using Powerpoint). Today, I take pictures and videos using the new Little Reader app on my smartphone anywhere and anytime, and they are synced to my tablet to be displayed there, or can be screen-casted from my phone directly to the TV.  At a press of a button, I can even have the lessons printed out, and have simple books created within 5 minutes.

Taking pictures and videos using our smartphones is something virtually parents do today anyway, so the only real added ‘work’ in creating content is attaching words to those pictures and videos.  I created Little Reader to make this process as simple as possible for myself, and I believe that the process is now simple enough to realistically be doable on a regular basis by any parent, even a busy one.

Indeed, for much of the basic content, all that’s needed is to attach pictures or videos to the words that are already there. For example, simply tap on the word ‘hair’, then take a quick picture of (let’s say) Daddy’s hair, and we now have a personalized lesson that will teach the word ‘hair’ using media that your child will find familiar and interesting.

Do the same thing for the other words that are included by default and very quickly, you will have one-of-a-kind lessons that can be used to teach your child the different parts of the body, family members and simple verbs.

Motivation and Habit

It’s crucial that we as parents continue to have motivation to continue to create content and to teach.  Fortunately, and speaking from my own experience, there will likely be several continual sources of motivation.

Not long after starting to teach Kyler, it would often be Kyler himself who would ask for lessons, by grabbing the tablet with both hands, bringing it to me, and trying his best to say, “Little Reader”. At the end of lessons, he would often be asking for more (see video here).

Seeing the obvious enjoyment he had for the lessons, and the way his face would light up every time, would remind me that even if I had to spend a lot more in terms of time and effort, it would still be worth it.

Before long, I would be taking pictures and videos everywhere we go together, and all I need to do would be to spend a few minutes to attach words to them before being able to review our day in the form of word lessons.

After just a few weeks of doing this, I realized that I had inadvertently created a most wonderful photo/video gallery that documented Kyler’s entire learning journey, and which contained precious memories of him and the family which I would otherwise not have captured. This motivated me to do even more.

And then of course, the icing on the cake – results! After a few months (starting from when he was 12 months old), Kyler started to demonstrate that he could understand the words he had been learning. At first, he showed he understood the words when we spoke it, then soon after, he also demonstrated that he recognized the words in written form! His reading progress can be seen in this video.  As I witnessed his reading skills develop so quickly, and especially the pride he had in being able to read, it was easy to remain motivated to continue to create lessons to teach him.

The biggest motivating factor, however, will be in the bonding you experience with your child during the entire process – both when capturing content, as well as during the reading sessions

Technology Is On Our Side

And there’s more good news.  With the current advancement in AI, creating personalized content is going to get even easier very soon.  It’s clear from the trajectory that can be seen in AI-generated content that even the need to take pictures and videos of your child’s daily life for the purposes of creating content might even be dispensed with to a large extent in the near future. For example, one simple photo of the family will likely be all that’s necessary to create a large amount of personalized content (including words, sentences, stories, pictures and animations) that is based on the various family members.

After taking videos of our trip to the zoo, AI will be able to recognize the content and suggest words and phrases from the videos, and all that’s needed from us would be to review and approve the suggested content.

The Future Is Bright

In this two-part article series, we’ve explored a new approach to teaching babies and toddlers by teaching words deliberately from infancy and creating personalized lessons that tap into their natural curiosity.  When we tap into children’s innate curiosity and take advantage of the 0-2 years window when it’s the easiest time to teach, we maximize the potential of the most important early years, and fully harness young children’s natural desire to explore.

Although some effort is required by parents, technology continues to make the process easier. The rewards of stronger family bonds and seeing a child’s excitement for learning make it more than worthwhile.

It is my hope that this new approach to teaching our children becomes the norm for early learning in the years to come. The future is bright when parents can fully realize their potential as their child’s first and best teacher early on, and children can in turn realize their full potential to learn and to thrive.