Words words words

N’s always been a bit of a chatty one, although it’s so far been more jabbering to himself than many discernable words.  He’s getting there, although is showing little want to actually make an effort to copy specific words people ask him to say.

He also seems to be really quiet when he’s out and about with other children.  But get him home afterwards, and you can’t shut him up.  It’s though he doesn’t want to interrupt them, but then comes out of his shell once he’s with his family and back in his own house.  It could also be that he can’t really hear what’s going on in loud environments so struggles to make himself heard, or wants to just take everything in – which is more likely as his head turns all over the place; you can really hear the cogs whirring in his head as he’s thinking all these little thoughts about what he’s seeing and hearing.

It’s intriguing to me though about the order that children learn to say which words.  Obviously mum and dad come out quite early on, no and yes, bye, as those are the ones that the adults talk to them lots about.  But I’d also assumed that something like milk or drink would be an early word especially as N’s so keen on both milk and generally the numerous cups of water he has throughout the day.

For him, the words he’s been picking up have quite naturally been things on the farm…tractor, dog, duck, bird, chicken, turkey, sheep, car, animal noises, and then book, digger, banana, all the things that are important in his life.  But yesterday we met a friend and it was amazing to see how many things were different – his little friend was really into lights (N can’t be bothered to even look at one if it’s flashing or you point it out and certainly isn’t fussed about much in terms of learning household terms – apart from bath).

I guess it all depends on what’s happening at home and around them, plus what interests the parents for them to talk about.  N just seems to want to say what he wants, rather than copying what I say at a time.

Although he is trying singing at the moment – current songs he sings are ‘baa baa black sheep’ taught by Granny, and Merrily Merrily for which we have (kind of) actions in the bath.  He also enjoyed the rainbow colour song, which I sing pointing out the coloured parts of the train in his Child’s first encylopedia book, and he loves doing hand actions to Twinkle twinkle little star.  We may not be able to make Rhythm Time classes that I loved so much, but I’m determined that he’ll get some of my love of music (not sure whether the OH’s love of Guns & Roses is quite in our repertoire yet – he did enjoy sitting watching and listening to the DVD of their gigs, but unfortunately the disc is now dirty, so we avoid being blasted out at the moment!)

What were the themes of words that your little ones learnt first?