Helping with grammar
© Jupiter
As your child begins to understand the more complicated aspects of grammar you can help, as before, by simply repeating what she has said in the correct form. So, as she starts to apply the constructions more and more widely, help her to use them in the correct way with new words and expressions.
Helping with negatives
With your help your child can learn to put the negative where it belongs. By listening to what you say she learns to use won't, can't, wouldn't, hadn't, wasn't.
Your child says “I not eat biccit”. You say “You haven't eaten your biscuit”.
Your child says “No sweeties left”. You say “Oh dear - there aren't any more sweeties”.
Help in question asking
In the same way you can teach her how to ask questions correctly and use the appropriate words that precede questions.
Your child says “Go out?”. You say “Where shall we go?” .
Your child says “More?”. You say “Would you like some more ice cream?”.
Your child says “Coat on?”. You say “Why do you put your coat on?”.
In this way your child learns to use the “wh” words, such as what, who, which, where and why.
Helping with adjectives
One of the best ways to teach your child about adjectives and the relationship of one object to another is to do it by opposites. So if your child says big ball, you can look around for a smaller ball, and then introduce her to the concept of opposites such as big and small.
You will be able to show her that compared to each other one is bigger than the other or that one is smaller than the other. Similarly, you can introduce other concepts to your child, such as wide and narrow, thick and thin, deep and shallow, heavy and light, hard and soft. Always demonstrate with the appropriate objects and if possible making it into a kind of game.
Helping with possessive pronouns
Your child says “I bring book here”, you can say “Oh you were over there and you brought your book to me here.”
Your child says “I hate this biccit”. You say “Oh then I'll have your biscuit and you can have my biscuit”.
Your child says “This Jennifer coat, that Mummy coat”. You say, “Yes, that is your coat, Jennifer, this is my coat”.
This way your child learns how to use the words “my” and “yours”.
New Babycare
Copyright © 2009 Dorling Kindersley
Text copyright © 2009 Miriam Stoppard
Posted 30.06.2010
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