Zero to Five. Tracy Cutchlow
talk with baby is to snuggle in close and use a high, lilting voice with drawn-out vowels.
It’s called “parentese.” In the first eighteen months, it helps baby pick out and imitate parts of language.
That’s because each vowel and word becomes more distinct, so they’re easier for baby to discern. The higher pitch matches the limited range of a baby’s smaller vocal tract—one-quarter the size of yours.
It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it
Infants prefer the pitch of parentese to adult speech, according to decades of research:
• Babies’ heart rates increased when they heard parentese, even in a foreign language.
• At 5 months old, babies smiled more at approvals and looked worried at disapprovals in parentese.
• At 12 months old, babies asked to look at a picture did so more often when asked in parentese.
TRY THIS
Read a magazine story to your baby, using the same tone and speed you would with your partner. See how your baby reacts. (Mine tries to pinch my lips closed.) Now read it again in parentese. It’s pretty funny to look baby in the eyes and say, wide-eyed and smiling, something like, “Unfortunately, encounters with cops are always at the worst moments in your life.” But watch baby engage!
If your baby hears a ton of talk in her first three years, she’ll have a bigger vocabulary, a higher IQ, and better grades than children who aren’t talked to much.
When should you start? In the last ten weeks of pregnancy. Babies begin to absorb language, as the mother’s voice reverberates through her body, earlier than researchers realized.
Talk richly
Simplify a description or explanation, but there’s no need to avoid using the proper words. Most words are unusual to a baby, right? Instead of just “Look—airplane!” you might say, “That’s a seaplane. Do you see how the plane has two feet? Those feet are called pontoons. Pontoons let the plane float on the water. A seaplane floats on the water.” (To such explanations, my baby replies amenably, “OK, yeah.”)
Talk positively
Encourage your child. “Wow, you’re learning to pour! Oops, the water spilled. Yeah, it’s tricky to line up the cups. We’ll clean that up. OK, let’s try again—hold your hand here . . .” That’s more encouraging than saying, “Let Daddy pour that. You’re going to spill it.”
Repeat or rephrase baby’s words. “Ball! Yes, you’re playing with a ball.”
Give positive feedback. Use more “Good” and “Right” than “Don’t,” “Stop,” and “Bad.”
Give polite guidance rather than directives. “Can you . . . ?” and “Do you . . . ?” and “Oh, thank you!”
Talk directly to baby
Speech that baby simply overhears doesn’t provide the same boost in baby’s vocabulary or language proficiency. Neither does playing audio or video of someone talking. The brain is electrified by face-to-face interaction, so much so that the presence or absence of that social connection acts as a gate to learning language.
Talk regularly
Children who are talked to more often get a brain boost. It helps to have places to go and people to see, which gives you a world of things to describe and explain. (See page for more ideas.)
Say anything and everything
Newborn and infant
It may feel a little strange to talk this much to someone who doesn’t talk back. But you get used to it.
Read out loud. A newspaper story, for example, gives you a chance to catch up on the world (if you can keep baby from ripping the paper and eating it).
Explain what’s about to happen to baby. Babies understand more than you think they do, and it helps to give them a little notice before moving them this way and that. “Let’s change your diaper. Here comes a wet wipe. Legs up . . . legs down.” “I’m going to put on your hat, and then we’ll walk outside.” “Grandma is going to visit you today.”
Narrate your day—whatever you’re doing, seeing, thinking, and feeling. Take moments to engage your baby with eye contact, a smile, or a tickle. It doesn’t really matter what you talk about.
EXAMPLES
Folding laundry: “Oh good, two matching socks. Two matching socks! I’m folding the tops together so one doesn’t get lost. There we go.” “Ooh, a nice warm sheet.” (Cover baby’s head, then lift it away.) “Where’s baby? There’s baby!”
Going for a walk: Talk about where you’re going today and what you see as you pass by.
Dressing baby: “Let’s see, which shirt will you wear today? I’m partial to this one. Over the head!” (Baby flips over and wiggles away.) “Come here, little fishy. We’re not done yet!” (Scoot baby back to you with kisses.) “Left arm through. Right arm through. Good. Well, aren’t you cute. Aren’t you cute!”
Making a bottle: “Fill . . . scoop . . . pour . . . twist . . . shake-shake-shake.”
Toddler
Once baby is more active, all this talking gets easier and, I found, feels less silly—even if it doesn’t sound less silly.
EXAMPLES
Simply describe all the impressive stuff baby is doing. “You opened the drawer. You closed the drawer. Open. Close. Open. Close. Good job! You’re pulling the drawer open. You’re pushing the drawer closed. Pull. Push. Pull. Push. Ooh, a pen. You found a pen in the drawer. Wow, you took the lid off the pen! I’ll take that . . .”
Explain whatever baby seems interested in. “Yes, that’s Daddy’s helmet. HEL-met. He’s putting it on his head. He’s buckling the strap under his chin. Now he can safely ride his bike.”
Build nouns into sentences. “Lid. This is a lid. A lid goes on top of a pan. I put the lid on top of the pan. Can you put the lid on top of the pan?”
Once baby starts talking, interacting this way becomes even more fun—and impossibly cute. Before you know it, baby starts repeating everything you say. Then you can teach baby to say things you want to hear. Our baby says, “Daddy runs fast!” and “Go, Pack, go!”
Which situations will you narrate to baby?
2,100 words per hour?!
THE RESEARCH
Betty Hart tried everything she could think of to improve the vocabularies of the 4-year-olds in the low-income preschool where she was teaching. She couldn’t do it. Finally, she and Todd Risley, her graduate supervisor at the University of Kansas, figured out that, by age 4, it was too late.
They wanted to know why.
So they followed forty-two families and recorded every word they said—for one hour per month, over two-and-a-half years.