What We Say

I have been practicing Narrative Elaboration with the kids for as long as I can remember. Knowing how imperative early meaningful discourse is for babies and toddlers to their cognitive development (especially non-present discourse) it has been important to us that we foster these skills early on.

Interestingly, both kids seem to enjoy non-present discourse the most out of the types of communication we carry out throughout a typical day. Since the first three years of life is the most intensive period for acquiring speech and language skills, we had to make the most of the time we had. And did we ever!

Each night, as I tuck little Pea into bed, I lie face to face with him while he recounts the day (with my help). We start with what we had for breakfast then move through the day's events chronologically (an example of non-present discourse). At the end, he tells me what part of the day was his favourite. Lately, and in keeping with the next stage of communication, he makes sure to ask me to tell him what part of the day was my favourite. This exchange of communication, the taking on of my perspective, is indicative of another key milestone in his own language development.

One of the most important language processing tips I learned was from teaching. I once read an almost unbelievable statistic that the time between a question posed by a teacher and the selection of a student to answer that question was a mere 9/10 of a SECOND. Crazy! Since that time, I made a conscious effort to count to 10 before selecting a student to answer a question. Interestingly, the longer I gave the students to think about an answer, the more hands went up to respond. We all need time to process. Some of us need a little longer. So, in keeping with this tactic, I try to give the twins a lot of time to process a question before answering it for them or giving them a consequence for not adjusting behaviour accordingly.

The science of language is fascinating to me and it is staggering to imagine all those neurons firing off in the twins' brains day in and day out. I love this age of emergent reading and language development. It makes me so happy!