This summer has included a multitude of events with my busy toddler including the way she has made sense of the exposure to several languages. I have watched her transform what once sounded like babble to actual words and to no one’s surprise she includes Spanish, English, and French in her speech (though mostly Spanish). What amazes me the most is how she is incorporating English into her linguistic repertoire. I have witnessed (as many SB readers probably have) how much peers influence a child’s choice of language-use. Just today Sabrina said to a friend on our way out of the pool “let’s go!” I, of course, restated the same sentence in Spanish, “vámonos!” When she translated the utterance I felt reassured that she is going to become bilingual, at the very least.
Now that her vocabulary is expanding and she is trying to tie words together, I am faced with the challenge of teaching her how to string a sentence together. For example, the other day she said (while pointing to her lips with her finger), “aqui agua sho-cay [shortcake] papa.” She was asking her papa to please give her the strawberry shortcake water bottle that was lying next to him!
Part of my objective in writing this post is to ask you, the readers, for some tips about helping toddlers string words together to form complete sentences. I bought a book with 1,000 words in Spanish embedded in various contexts as a prompt to promote the use of complete sentences. I also plan on doing the Sticky Paper Collage for Spanish Conversation to encourage the use of complete sentences. I know there is an innate component to language learning, but I also believe in teaching the process like you would any other life activity (e.g., potty training). The main point for me as a mother and educator is to make the process fun, hence my solicitation of strategies from you the readers who may have more experience than me in raising a toddler.
In which ways have you encouraged your child(ren) to string words together to form a complete sentence?
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Provide a good example for her, speaking in full complete sentences, don’t mix languages (unless for some reason you want her to mix languages) and read her bedtime stories. I think that is all you really can do for a while. She’s a toddler and she’ll get to full sentences when she’s ready for full sentences. Kids work at their own pace and there isn’t much any of us can do to change that. Relax, my son is a super chatty kid but, everything happened in his own time.
I was thinking about your post this morning and wanted to make sure that I shared with you. First, as I’m sure that you well know, the best way for you to help Sabrina string words together to form sentences is to provide her with a language-rich environment. As she says a few words and you understand what she is saying, you narrate the entire sentence for her as naturally as possible. She doesn’t need to repeat after you, and you don’t have to say, “Se dice asi….” (As my husband does and drives me bananas in the meantime!) But I figure you know all this stuff!
What I found to be a great tool are those little Brain Quest flashcard questions categorized by age. I pull them out at breakfast and ask Sofia the questions. We both love them! The scenes are already created as well as the questions. They touch on a variety of topics, some of which, we don’t normally have in our environment but are still important for youngsters to know. They totally help expand our daily vocabulary regardless of the language and the questions can be repeated because as time progresses, your child’s language develops more, so the responses will be varied. They are also a great tool to use to bridge the gap between a youngster and a visiting relative who may not really know how to talk to a toddler and provides something to help the conversation flow!
Buena suerte!
Thanks, Elizabeth! Do you translate the questions or do they come in Spanish, too?
I’ve only found them in English and since we only speak Spanish at home, I just translate the questions. Right now it isn’t a problem because Sofia’s interaction with the question is all in picture form. Down the road, when it comes time for her to read something, well…it will only be in English.
Thank you, Elizabeth & Casey! Your tips are helpful reminders. Im going to try the card activity during breakfast, too!
Hi Suzanne,
I am a bilingual special education teacher raising a 10 month old baby girl following the OPOL model. My little one is just starting to talk, but I have seen this at my school with my native Spanish speaking students as they learn English. One great way to encourage complete sentences is through songs. They can be real songs or you could just sing certain key phrases on a regular basis to encourage your daughter to mimic you. For example “Pásame la taza por favor, por favor, por favor. ¡Pásame la taza por favor, quiero tomar AGUA!” to the tune of “Mary had a little lamb”. For a GREAT youTube channel with real “canciones”, search for “Oso traposo”, under Guia infantil. I play it for my little one when I have to cut her fingernails, and she loves that oso so much, she doesn’t even notice!
Hi Suzanne!
I’m fully bilingual myself in a Spanish speaking environment. I plan to make Valentín, my 3 months old baby, fully bilingual so I always interact with him in English and Spanish. From nursery rhymes to simple sentences I always make sure he has a good session of both English and Spanish. Buena suerte!
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