Firstly, you have to build your vocabulary to help your child speak well. They start talking with the words they hear frequently, which come from you. They’ll call things what you call them until they start school, begin to learn different words and pronunciations from their teachers, and then begin to express themselves in the words taught in school.
For instance, if there’s a woman that sells raw fish around your neighborhood, instead of referring to her as a fishmonger, you choose to call her a “fishseller”, What about the cobbler down the street, whom you refer to as a shoemaker? So, you wouldn’t expect your child to grow up using words like fishmonger and cobbler when they aren’t frequently used around the house.
As Nigerians, most of you will say all this stuff doesn’t matter; whatever you choose to call it is fine as long as the other person understands, but it does matter because we are raising a new generation of kids who will connect locally and internationally with great minds; it’s not just a Naija thing.
Mind you, not only children raised abroad are meant to speak well; children in Nigeria are also meant to speak well with the right pronunciation and vocabulary. We have seen a lot of Nigerian-raised kids who speak well; yours shouldn’t be left out.
Be intentional about working on your vocabulary to help your child.
Inculcate a reading habit in your child; start early to introduce them to books of different kinds. Aside from building their vocabulary, its good effect is lifelong.
Get them to discuss the books they read with you, and help them become conversant with new words from this book while you try to use them in different scenarios.
Toddlers aren’t exempt from this; read it out loud to them.
Lastly, good movies also help to build a child’s vocabulary. Yeah, I say too much screen time is bad, but that doesn’t call for the elimination of movies from a child’s life.
Watch out for movies with good moral lessons whose vocabulary is top-notch; just like reading, discuss this movie with them and find out their takeaway from it.
By Doris Chisom
