Acknowledgements - gapitc

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Children learn language by hearing others speak and engaging in conversation.
Take time to listen to your child and talk with him often.
Play “I Spy” in the grocery store with your child. For example,“I spy with my little
eye something red and round. We like to eat it in our salad.” This is a fun language
activity and helps with grocery store behavior too!
Listen. One of the best ways to encourage children to talk is to listen to what
they talk about,then extend what they have said and ask questions. Take cues from
your child about her interests and make that the focus of your conversations.
Avoid asking your child “why” he has done something—three year olds cannot
analyze their own behavior. Ask him to tell you what happened instead.
Extend children’s descriptions when they describe something briefly.For example,
if your child says “The hamster is running,” you might add “round and round on
the wheel.”
Look at photographs of your child doing things with other people. Ask her to
tell who is in the picture and describe what they are doing.
Be patient with your child’s questions.Children ask questions about things that interest
them. Use books and other resources to find answers you do not know.
Tips about Bilingual Development
Children are capable of learning two or more languages in childhood.
Children who are exposed to two languages on a daily or weekly basis show the
same milestones in language development at roughly the same ages as children
who are exposed to one language.
Sometimes bilingual children know fewer words in one or both languages in
comparison to children who learn one language. This is because their memory
must store words in two languages rather than one.
Bilingual children learn words in each language from different people in different
situations. For example, they may learn some words from parents at home and
others from teachers at school. Therefore, they may know certain words in one
language but not in the other.
Mixing languages in sentences is natural and normal for bilingual children. This
is because they may know some words in one language but not the other. They
may “borrow” words from one language to complete a sentence in the other.
This tends to disappear by the time they enter elementary school.
Knowing the language of their parents and grandparents is important to their
cultural identity.