Why You Should Use Loud Words With a Small Child
Two weeks ago, I was driving home with my 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter after swimming in the local pool when my phone rang with the bad news.
Before I could stop, it came out of me: a loud and decisive curse echoed through the tiny cab of our car right into the back seat where the children were.
“You often say this word,” said my son.
Yes, and I’m not proud of it. None of my children have used this word yet, perhaps because they instinctively suspected that it was outside the circle of time. But I guess there will be a note from the teacher soon because my kids are just like everyone else – whatever we say, they absorb it.
And therein lies the opportunity to show children the value of words – good and bad, big and small. In addition to occasional mistakes here and there, we tried to introduce children to a wider vocabulary. We know that they eventually become clearer and more effective in expressing themselves, but it’s also interesting to see what words they cling to and use in conversation.
There are several ways to build a child’s vocabulary, but it’s important to remember that repetition and context will help them along the way. According to Noni Leso, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, a child needs 13 to 15 influences on a word in different contexts and at different times to understand the word and its meaning. Reusing a word in a series of conversations is effective – I remember spending weeks talking to my son about cumulonimbus during stormy summer days in Colorado – and, if possible, use the words in different contexts. If you are thinking like a three-year-old, the word “impressive” can refer to many different areas of life: a rainbow, a tree house, or the neck of a brachiosaurus. Once they learn the word, they can freely apply it in their world.
It is also helpful to help children visualize any words they are learning, especially large ones. When my son asked about how prairie dogs travel underground, I told him not only about the tunnels they dig, but also about the “catacombs” they create to get from one hole to another. Once we found a useful cross-section of the prairie dog world in the book, he was able to visualize what the catacomb looked like and figure out what the word meant. Then we talked about what it means to have a home “underground”. There is no reason to think that they cannot find words if you use them often and in the right context.
In my experience, this is perhaps the most important clue. I usually talk to my kids the way I would talk to an adult, pausing when necessary to tell each child what words like “highlight” or “protagonist” mean and suggesting a short context or how to use them …
Although I’ve tried to cut down on curses in front of the kids, I still have my dream script the next time I screw up. If another foul language slips into the car, the silence is broken by my son, intervening from the back seat.
“Dad,” he says to me in a dream, “I certainly appreciate your enthusiasm.”