G is for Games

Both my husband and I like board games. Since we are both from Europe, we prefer European board games – The Settlers of Catan is my favorite, but we have very many different ones. Of course, they are way too early for Anna, so we started trying toddler board games with her. Hi-Ho Cheery-O was a short-lived hit, but Chutes and Ladders proved to be too long and too confusing. So one day my husband sat at the kitchen table and in ten minutes created a board game for our daughter. We play it together as a family every day now, and everyone has a blast. The game is played with a six-sized dice and with wooden game pieces. There is a musical square – you are supposed to sing a song if you end up there. There are a lot of squares that involve move backward or forward. There is also “hug kitty” square – Anna has a favorite toy and she is very excited when kitty (who sits on the table during the game) gets a hug. And there is a square that requires kissing a player on your right or on your left. It’s simple, but it enforces a lot of concepts – left and right, backward and forward, taking turns, following directions, etc. And the best part is in the end – the winner gets a piece of chocolate and shares it with other players

We also play word games when we are in the car. Because ABC and 123 has “G-related” activities planned, we picked sound guh yesterday. I asked Anna to come up with some words that start with this sound. She volunteered guitar, goat, guest and get, then said that she wants to guess now (of course, at this point I pointed out to her that guess starts with sound guh too). When we play a guessing game, it’s almost like a crossword. I tell her something about the target word, and she is trying to guess what it is. For example, an animal who lives in a jungle, likes bananas, and also lives in a zoo sometimes – gorilla. Someone who comes during Halloween, says Boo! and not real – ghost. Anna really has fun with this game, and I think it extended her vocabulary significantly.

Reading in Russian… sort of.

We have some Russian books at home supplied generously by my parents. Apparently, last time they were here they gave my daughter “gentle suggestion” to ask me to read her Russian books. I admit – it was exciting for me to meet again the friends of my childhood. By the way, a lot of them are familiar to the Western children as well – the book featured here is called “Golden Tales of the World” and contains stories of Little Mermaid (real story, not a happy-end Disney version), Jungle Books (again, real story), Little Red Riding Hood, Peter Pan, etc. I decided to start with those and then add true Russian fairy tales, which are usually darker and most of them also come as poems. Now, Anna doesn’t really understand Russian. So I usually read one sentence in Russian then translate it in English and highlight one or two words. That lasts about 5 minutes, then she asks to just keep reading in English. I am afraid that at this point nothing short of immersion program will make her fluent in Russian, but I am glad that she is interested in learning more about my language and culture. I will continue to teach her as long as she is interested, but I am not too interested in “pushing it”. I know fairly well from reading on the subject that minority language cannot be maintained without “critical mass” of listening and reading in it, so I am not kidding myself about my chances of success here.

Raising Bilingual Children

 

Both sets of grandparents have visited us in the space of about 5 weeks. Anna enjoyed all the extra attention, and had a chance to hear a lot of German and Russian. In I have mentioned before that both of us were born outside of US. My parents live in New Jersey now, but Russian is still their predominant language. They are giving me a very hard time for not teaching Anna Russian, and they are right. It was fascinating to hear her using a few Russian words with her babushka and dedushka after just a couple of days together. But I wasn’t prepared to speak Russian to her from birth. For years now I lived in an English-speaking environment, with most of my friends speaking English. I think in English, read English books, watch English movies. I would have never believed it ten years ago, but raising my child in English felt more natural to me than doing so in Russian. It didn’t help that my husband doesn’t speak any Russian. Since he was staying home with Anna, we decided that he will speak German to her while I speak English to her. The results are… interesting. Anna definitely understands German. It was interesting to watch her interact with her German grandma. Oma would ask Anna a question in German, and Anna would reply in a perfect context… but in English. Will her German ever take off? I believe so, but I think she will need more language immersion. Right now all her energies are channelled into mastering and improving her English, and she is significantly above her age in both comprehension and expression. It’s quite a feat for a bilingual child, so I am willing to wait and hope that her passive German will one day become an active language as well.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder…

I am finally back from my travel and happy to reunite with my daughter. It seems that every change of routine creates a significant spurt in her intellectual and emotional development. I think we all learn best when we are forced out of our comfort zone into an area where we have to stretch ourselves. I was really surprised how in just a week she developed an ability to defend her opinions with long-winded because clauses in her sentences. I guess papa needs a lot more justification on Anna’s part before he complies with any requests than I do.

Take your child to the library

I loved libraries since I was a child myself. It’s a kingdom of books, and they are all available to you… for free! We buy a lot of books for Anna, but I would not be able to afford several new books and one DVD a week. Reading together is still our favorite activities, and I hope that Anna will keep this love of books and libraries forever.

Our library also has a lot of great free programs for children. There are several story times every week, an art activity (unfortunately, it falls during Anna’s nap), programs for adults as well. The picture in the post is a real picture of a story telling area in our library. Now, when we have Wednesday nights free, I am taking Anna to a family story time for kids of all ages. It’s amazing to see how well she can listen and interact with the librarian and participate in the songs and dances, even though they are not designed specifically for toddlers. The librarian who leads the program is really great with selection of books and action songs. There is also one felt board story every time – something that Anna particularly enjoys. I feel really lucky to be living in an area where libraries are well funded, and I hope that despite the budget crunch we will not let our children down and continue to invest in their future through free books and programs available to all regardless of their income level.

Who is the boss?

A friend of mine post a link to the CNN story on Facebook. The title of the story is Becoming a Take-Charge Mom. I found it very useful, especially considering that I have a toddler in the house. Terrible twos seem to arrive and settle here. I am convinced now that this trying time has nothing to do with inability to express oneself. Anna can express herself quite well, and her whining is very articulate. It’s all about desire to control and first attempts to negotiate for what she wants. I think of myself overall as a take-charge mom, but sometimes I am at a loss in situations when Anna tries to negotiate ”nicely” for something that is not of an utmost importance to me. For example, shall we read another book on the potty? Shall we first water the flowers, then play with fallen flower petals. It seems that everyone I give in, we still end up with a confrontation about yet another book or more time in the park. Giving her more freedom comes at a cost of her thinking that she is a boss in the situations when she really doesn’t have any choice but comply. This leads to more confrontation. It seems that all I’ve been doing lately is showing her who the boss is – threatening, disciplining and bribing. Of course, there are moments of pure sweetness through this all, but if anyone has good advice, I am very ready to listen to it.

When to worry about speech delay?

Why do I write about speech delays, when my 30 month old speaks in full paragraphs and appears to be significantly ahead of her peers in her language development? Watching her climbing over the play structure at our friends’  house during the weekend reminded me how much I was worried about her when she was not even pulling up to standing at 12 months. I watched my friends’ babies walking around back then, and I was wondering if something is seriously wrong with my daughter. In a retrospect, I wish I would fret less and enjoy her baby days more. Despite the apparent delay my daughter mostly caught up with her peers in her physical skills. I believe it’s also true for late talkers. According to my family lore, I was talking only in single words until 30 months, and then switched directly to paragraph speech and started reading fluently by 3 years. For most kids it’s impossible to say by kindergarten who was a late talker and who was an early talker. However, speech delays are a lot more prevalent than motor skills delays, and I believe that parents should be aware of warning signs and know what  resources are available to their toddlers on the road to language acquisitions. Here is a short rundown from Kidshealth on the warning signs of speech delay:

An infant who isn’t responding to sound or who isn’t vocalizing is of particular concern. Between 12 and 24 months, reasons for concern include a child who:

• isn’t using gestures, such as pointing or waving bye-bye by 12 months
• prefers gestures over vocalizations to communicate by 18 months
• has trouble imitating sounds by 18 months
• has difficulty understanding simple verbal requests

Seek an evaluation if a child over 2 years old:

• can only imitate speech or actions and doesn’t produce words or phrases spontaneously
• says only certain sounds or words repeatedly and can’t use oral language to communicate more than his or her immediate needs
• can’t follow simple directions
• has an unusual tone of voice (such as raspy or nasal sounding)
• is more difficult to understand than expected for his or her age. Parents and regular caregivers should understand about half of a child’s speech at 2 years and about three quarters at 3 years. By 4 years old, a child should be mostly understood, even by people who don’t know the child.

My baby can read!

I thought this will make a good headline for an April Fools’ post. No, my baby cannot read, even though she can fool you sometimes. She memorized so many books that she can often supply the next word or the next sentence. She can also find the word in the sentence based on the first letter of the word. For example, if we read the sentence, Look at these pretty flowers, I can ask her to point out the word pretty. She will say, ppp… and then look for the word that starts with p. Too bad if the sentence happens to contain two words that start with p – then all bets are off. And she cannot read any word except a few sight words, such as go and stop, when they are taken out of the context, for example, when I draw them on the board. So… no real reading on the horizon, but not too shabby for someone who is not even 2.5 years yet.

Language Milestones – 25-30 months

Anna is 28 months today, so I decided to look for language milestones and see what she is “supposed” to be doing at this age. Here is an interesting article from BabyCenter:

25 to 30 months
Now that he has a bigger vocabulary, your toddler will begin to experiment with modulation. For a while he may yell when he means to speak normally and whisper softly when answering a question, but he’ll find the appropriate volume soon enough. He’s also starting to get the hang of pronouns, such as “I,” “me,” and “you.” Between ages 2 and 3, his working vocabulary will grow to up to 300 words — and he’ll understand up to 900 words. He’ll string nouns and verbs together to form complete but simple sentences, such as “I go now.”

He’ll even get the hang of speaking about events that happened in the past. He may not quite understand the concept of irregular forms, though, so you’ll hear expressions like “I runned” or “I swimmed” and plurals like “mouses.” Sure, it’s cute, but it also shows that he’s picking up on the basic rules of grammar (that you add a “d” sound to a word if it happened yesterday, for example, and an “s” sound to make things plural).

At this age, your child will start answering simple questions, such as “Do you want a snack?” and “Where are your shoes?” If you notice that he consistently echoes your questions rather than trying to answer them, bring it up with your child’s doctor. Such behavior can be an early sign of a developmental problem such as autism.

Anna is definitely very much on track with her language development or better. Her vocabulary is way more than 300 words, she is understood by strangers most of the time, she follows directions, tells short stories, asks why? questions and what does it mean? questions. What did we do right? I think the most important thing was that we read to her from a very early age. Even when she was just born, my husband and I used to sit in her room holding her and reading aloud to each other from What to Expect in the First Year book. The article on language development from WebMD names reading the most important learning activity for young children. And – turn off that TV already!

Teaching sign language to babies and toddlers

An interesting tidbit of information has crossed my Google Alert widget.

Researchers found children who begin using gestures at 14 months have a wider range of vocabulary at 54 months than those who do not gesticulate at a young age. A lot of educated moms I know strongly believe in Sign Language for babies. We were recommended many books and programs, and I bought and/or rented a few. I liked Baby Signs approach from the book on the left, and we tried it with Anna, when she was about 6 months or so. Unfortunately, she wasn’t really interested in signing despite our earnest attempts to remember and sign “eat”, “more” and “bath”.  She was an early talker, who would rather talk than sign. She did eventually sign two signs – “more” and “please”, but they fell off rather quickly as her language progressed, and we didn’t pursue sign language outside of those basic signs.