Reading: The Original Superpower Begins With Sounds in Words

by Kris

Have you ever listened to someone speak in French or Romanian and wondered where one word stopped and the next one began? That’s what it’s like for newborns and infants as they hear their family members speak.

Eventually, at about 10 to 12 months of age, babies start to utter sounds that mimic speech, though typically they begin babbling cute little noises a few months before that. It is at the age of one that children have learned all the sounds in their native language that they are going to speak.

Children who are read to at an early age, gain an increased understanding of the relationship between sounds and how those sounds relate to words. Reading to them also develops their speaking skills more rapidly.

Between the ages of three and five years, their understanding of spoken language goes from large utterances to the smallest. First, they understand words, then syllables, then the tiny sounds in words, such as the beginning sound or the ending sound or the sound the vowel stands for. And when I say, understand them, I am taking for granted that they are given an exposure to such things such as sentences, phrases and words because their family members are speaking to them and just as importantly, they are reading to them.

It has been shown that the more language children experience through books and conversation with other people, the more advantaged they are in every other way that is necessary; socially, and academically.

Infants and toddlers love to and need to make sense of the world around them. Give them an assist and advantage by reading stories and rhymes and talking with them. You’ll be amazed at the return on that investment of snuggle time.

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