Life Teaches Language to the Young Child

Kids are born to learn.
They arrive studying the world around them--its how they survive.
Under optimal circumstances this natural thirst to learn everything possible about their world grows, and grows, and grows, quenched over and over again by nurturing adults around the child. This is how a solid foundation for life long learning is laid.

How can you enhance this process?

1. The most powerful and practical way I know is though the use of language. Talk and talk and talk to the newborn and the young child. Talk about everything: the softness of the blanket as you touch her face with it, the smell of a flower, the sound of a buzzing bee, the warmth of the water in the bath. It might seem like a one sided word by word report about the world around her but nothing is further from the truth. Trust me: when you add language to early sensory experience you are opening the door to a deeper and richer experience than she could ever create on her own.

2. Motivation and interest fuels learning. When a child is looking at or reaches for something, she is as motivated as she can be to learn more about it. As you talk about it let her touch, smell and otherwise explore it through her senses (in whatever ways are safe and appropriate). The more richly she experiences it, the more she will remember and enjoy the experience and easily build on it.

3. Repetition deepens learning. If a child frequently experiences the smell and texture of the leaves of a scented geranium (one you pick and place in his hands) for instance, build on these experiences by talking about being gentle and kind to the plant as you help him pick a leaf. This may or may not be successful, depending on maturity and other things but I find it is worth a few leaves to discover if he might be ready to be introduced to feeling compassion for plants.

Real life is real. It provides a rich myriad of smells, tastes, sights, textures, sounds and feelings for the young child to experience. Children are naturally mindful. When you use daily life experience to draw her attention to the details and richness of life, you significantly increase her ability to grow and learn.

Life is many things: It certainly is challenging—

Not only challenging but also highly creative!

What we think, what we feel, affects our health and the functioning of our bodies. Although we may not be able to change what goes on around us we can always change how we feel about it—that's where the power is. When we remember this, life can become our greatest art––consciously creative acts with infinite possibilities.

What is even more exciting is when we consider this when we are interacting with young children. Kids study us to see how to survive--it is an instinct they have at birth. The empowering part is that as they study us, what they hear, see, experience not only impacts how they feel it affects how the brain is wired. The best part? We get to choose a lot of what they see, hear and experience. Knowing this, we can help them wire for compassion, empathy, intelligence, emotional health throughout life.We are empowered to help our kids thrive!

Understanding this is perhaps the greatest knowledge we have gained in the history of humanity.

Reading and Love go Hand in Hand and Heart to Heart

"Read to your kids!" It's great advice--important advice. But there's more to the story. How you read to your kids determines whether or not they end up with a love of reading and the skills needed to be a great reader. To start, it begins at the beginning. We used to think of the womb as dark and quiet. Actually by 24 weeks the fetus has been seen to turn in response to voices and other noise––the fetus hears us!

I love to see mammas-in-waiting reading to their baby as early as possible. Its a bonding activity--very soothing for mamma and babe. It is also the easiest time to read to a child and make up voices and play with rhythm, the most forgiving audience you'll ever have. And, if you provide this experience early on your child will arrive already feeling what it is to curl up with a good book in the arms of someone who loves them. This is the greatest start to reading you could ever give.

Nurturing experiences, bonding, and sensory activation are what the first year is all about. Finding books which provide that experience is an importnat part of early reading/listening experience. One of my favorite books for early reading to fetuses and newborns and young children is You Are My I Love You by Maryann Cusimano Love and Satomi Ichikawa. The richness of language, rhythm and rhyme are delicious nourishment for the developing relationship and developing mind. This book will stay in your hearts forever. The lesson here is "Read great books with love in your heart whenever you read to your kids." It will help develop not only the brain in their head but the brain in their heart. Reading with love throughout childhood is one of the best possible investments of time--you are building your child's future.

I'll write more about reading with little ones in my next post.
©  Nancy Tracey

Excerpt from my book, The First Five Years: Nurturing Your Child's Ability to Learn

Newborns

         The newborn arrives inquisitive, perceptive and entirely dependent on caregivers. Living fully in the present moment and hiding nothing, he announces his needs in the only way he can–with his voice. When parents meet these needs in a timely fashion, the child learns to trust. When parents hold him in loving arms, gently touching and caressing him, he feels loved and secure. When parents of a young child prepare him for new experiences by telling him what will likely be happening and that they are there to comfort and protect him, he develops his ability to face new situations, which leads to resilience in times of change. Qualities such as this become who he is and allow him to explore his world with growing confidence and curiosity. Each and every interaction between parent and child has the potential to strengthen his character and build a solid foundation for all future relationships.

         When I looked into the eyes of my son for the first time and he gazed back with the deepest awareness I had ever experienced, I received a glimpse of the depth of the newborn. I believe that children arrive on earth with an intuitive ability to experience this world through both their physical and emotional senses. Consider each interaction with your child as an opportunity to protect and nourish his sensitivity. This may be easier to do when he is peacefully asleep in your arms and more challenging when he is behaving in ways which are less lovable, but both are important and significant in the moment by moment development of your child. Newborns arrive unfinished, waiting to be sculpted by daily life. It is easier for us to provide experiences for our child when we remember this. . . .

When an infant’s emotions are acknowledged and respected, he is allowed to experience life and express how he feels about it in a natural fashion. Although some such expressions (happiness, enthusiasm and amazement) are easier to take than others (anger and aggression), each one provides parents with visual (and often auditory!) clues about the child’s inner world. Also, long before he can tell you how he feels, he is learning the role emotions play in day-to-day life. If he is fussy because he is hungry and tired and you provide food, cuddling and a nap, he learns how to recover from distress. The opposite occurs when such cues are ignored, leaving him unable to cope when life delivers high-level stress later on.

         All that goes on moment by moment in a child’s world teaches him important information about reality. When we keep this in mind and attempt to consciously use opportunities for guidance, we open the channels for growth of emotional intelligence, not only in our children, but in ourselves as well.

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Reading to a Young Child speaks More than Words!

Why is reading to a young child so exciting?

There are the regular reasons. It's important for them to hear language while they see pictures that also tell the story. Repetition of favorite stories allows them to be able to learn many reading/writing skills they will eventually be able to apply independently including prediction, questioning, language structure, vocabulary, sequence and eventually the importance of meaning--that the language sounds right and makes sense.  In many ways young children study how book language works! While you read to a young child you can almost hear the wiring being laid as their eyes light up in response to something which catches their imagination.

Benefits of frequently reading to young children also include enhancement of speaking and listening skills, exposure to new concepts, and confidence. It also nurtures imagination and creativity.

But above and beyond all the developmental reasons: IT IS FUN!! You, the adult, get to drop your role of responsibility and recharge your ability to play with your voice with an audience who is totally nonjudgmental--the sillier the better! Good early childhood books are designed to delight--you and your child. It's language often has rhythm and rhyme, the pictures colourful and uplifting.

Plus--and its a BIG plus: You get to cuddle another human. You get to share a loving moment with someone who loves you unconditionally. Is there anything better than that.

Spending quality time with a young child is one of the most nurturing things a parent can do. Several hours of quality time are worth much more than several hours quantity of time. But there is more to consider. What is quality time?

Quality time is when your child knows he or she has your full attention. They feel your interest in the interaction they are having with you and that what they say or do is important to you. They also may sense it as an open-ended, creative experience you are having together which has wings of its own--an adventure between two people who care for each other and share not just their minds but their hearts.

Times like this build relationships which are more able to withstand the pressures of daily life. They not only diffuse stress, they help build a healthy emotional base which is able to support your child when you are not with them. They become memories which last forever.

Genuine quality time is one of the most nurturing gifts you can give your child.

On air today! CBC's @ Stephanie Domet recorded interview with author of First Five Years: Nurturing Your Child’s Ability to Learn

Nancy http://brunswickbooks.ca/First-Five-Years/

For those who are asking: My book, The First Five Years is now available in the following NS stores

Halifax:

Woozles

The Bookmark

Tattletales

Chapters

Halifax Osteopathic Health Centre

Valley:

Box of Delights, Wolfville

Coles, New Minas

South Shore:

LaHave Bakery, LaHave

Coles, Bridgewater

The Biscuit Eater, Mahone Bay

I encourage you to support your local bookstores. Any bookstore (and individuals too) in the world, can also order from brunswickbooks.ca.

First Five Years | | Brunswick Books

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