Safe Search Kids - Education, Parenting, Internet Safety for All

Learning how to speak is an essential milestone for babies and toddlers. It’s also a task that parents and guardians should prepare for and take seriously from the birth of their child and beyond. Now, kids pick up language skills at their own pace. There’s always a chance that a child will learn to speak sooner or later than their siblings, cousins, or peers.

At the same time, though, it’s still important to keep a close track of their language skills. This is because delays in this area can indicate child development issues, and acknowledging and addressing these challenges as soon as possible can be key to changing a child’s developmental trajectory and improving the outcome for the child, their family, and their community as a whole.

How Can Parents Help Toddlers and Young Children Develop Language Skills?

Teaching your child how to communicate through words is a long-term task for many parents, and lessons should start upon the birth of your infant. While your child might not be able to use their words until after they turn 6 months old, for example, they are capable of understanding your words and connecting what you say to what you mean. Here’s how you can encourage your young babies and toddlers to develop their communication to ensure language acquisition.

Talk to Your Baby Frequently

Talking to your baby frequently will not only strengthen your bond with each other, but the act will also help expose your child to new sounds and words and learn how they are configured in sentences. In addition, it will also help them become more familiar with the world around them. Tell your baby about their surroundings, discuss the details of the clothes they’re wearing, or narrate what you’re doing when you’re around them, for starters.

Name the Objects around You

You can help your child pick up new words by introducing them to the items around them and the things that they use regularly. Introduce them to the feeding bottle every time you feed them so that they can connect it to the feeling of being satiated, for example. You can also do this with people by calling your partner, family members, or friends the names that you want your child to eventually associate with them.

Read Books and Labels Together

Reading to your child is a good practice, and research shows that children whose parents read them books as infants have larger vocabularies compared to their peers. Early on, show your infant how reading can be a fun activity by highlighting the pictures and words in the books that you read together.

Encourage Them to Repeat Words

If your baby is trying to repeat the words that you’re saying, encourage them. If they try to repeat the names of the people they interact with or the items they typically use, such as milk or ball, for example, this means that they’re getting the concept that these things have names. Support their progress and praise them for their efforts.

As soon as you notice an interest in a second language, you should equip them with the tools that will help them thrive. For instance, parents are often looking for the best app for kids to learn Spanish as they grow because they understand the benefits of being bilingual. Others enroll their children in classes to learn a new language or take them on trips that will expose them to different cultures, languages, and accents.

Cultivate Their Interests

What catches your child’s attention lately? If they’re interested in animals, dinosaurs, or trucks, for instance, how about using these items to spark a conversation with them? If you want them to practice speaking, ask them to describe their favorite toy, say what it can and can’t do, and what it might do if it gets in a particular situation.

Introduce Expectant Pauses

A pause that’s meant to give your child time to respond to a question is called an expectant pause, and many children’s shows use it to keep their young viewers engaged with their program. Use expectant pauses in real life as well to further encourage your child to say their mind and be a part of the conversation.

Give Your Child Options

Another way to encourage your child to use their words is by giving them options. Perhaps you can ask them if they’d rather wear clothes of one colour or another after taking a bath, or you can also ask them if they feel like eating a cookie or a cupcake as dessert.

Speak Slowly but Avoid Baby Talk

Allow your child to grasp the proper use of words by avoiding baby talk. Your child will inevitably mispronounce words that are not familiar to them or those that they have yet to practice using in earnest. Leave the baby talk to them, but use and pronounce the words properly so your child can follow your example.

When to Seek the Help of a Child Development Specialist

It’s important to talk to your pediatrician if your child has not yet started to talk by the age of 2, if they have trouble following directions or putting simple sentences together, or if their vocabulary is far smaller than is expected from someone of their age. It’s also a good idea to regularly share updates on your child’s language milestones with their paediatrician. This way, the specialist can address any concerns and questions that you might have about your child’s development and direct you to people who can help you and your child navigate challenges in acquiring verbal skills.

Reading Resources

Discover psychological strategies to encourage language learning in kids.

As parents, we want only the best for our children. If you’re looking for how to help your child do well in elementary school, you’re in the right place. We’ve collected a variety of tips and tricks to help your child excel in elementary school below. To start learning how to support your child, start reading!

Become Involved at School

If your schedule allows, it’s best to be involved in your child’s education. There are many ways to support your local school district. Consider joining the PTO to stay updated with the latest information affecting students.

Another option is chaperoning on school field trips for your child’s class. What can be better than creating fun memories that will last a lifetime?

Tutoring your child and other students is another avenue you may want to pursue. This approach lets you understand your child’s studies and how best to help them.

Encourage Habits That Promote Learning

One way to help your child do well in elementary school is by encouraging habits that promote learning. You can try games that develop helpful skills for the classroom, such as math, spelling, and reading. Many apps promote education, including:

• HOMER
• Endless Alphabet
• Prodigy

Alternatively, you can take an active approach to more traditional means of learning. For example, to encourage your elementary student with reading, you can ask your child to clap when they know the meaning of a word. This game will help them become a better listener, which will help them with their overall comprehension skills.

Start the Day Right

Starting each morning before school on a positive note will help set your child up for a good day. Begin by waking them up with an early, nutritious breakfast before school. Healthy foods will help them pay better attention in the classroom.

Ensure you get your child to school on time so that you can set them up with good habits. If they take the bus, help them get to the stop with time to spare so they don’t have rush. Pay attention to the clock if you drive your child, and always leave early. You want them to they arrive before the first bell rings.

Set Up a Good Bedtime Routine

Sleep is an important part of functioning well, so it’s no surprise that our children need to get their hours. Medical professionals recommend that students in elementary school get around 9-12 hours each night. Without getting enough sleep, your child is bound to feel irritable and less motivated for school in the morning.

To help set them up with some healthy habits, try implementing the following activities in your routine:

• A bath shortly before bedtime
• Brushing teeth
• Using the restroom
• Reading a bedtime story
• A goodnight kiss

When it’s time for bed, it’s best to keep children away from screens. Also, avoid sugary foods or drinks that might keep them up longer. Staying consistent with your child’s bedtime routine will help them develop healthy habits they can carry into adulthood.

You play a crucial role in helping your child’s success. Try your best to place emphasis on education by getting involved in school events and field trips. Structure your weekdays with plenty of fun learning opportunities. Finish days right by establishing a bedtime routine that lets your child recharge.

Recycling is something that all students learn about in school, but to make sure that these positive habits stick with them, you may need to follow up with additional lessons at home. Here are some tips on how to teach your children about the importance of recycling. Learn how to pass on these important habits to your kids.

Get Them Involved at Home

Your home is the perfect space to teach your kids to recycle because it allows them to apply what they’ve learned at school in a no-pressure environment. Consider creating kid-friendly sorting bins that are easy for your kids to understand. Teaching kids to use colors to sort different recyclables can be helpful for kids who are just learning how to read.

Sort recyclables by paper, plastic, glass, and compost if your family participates in composting. Even if your waste collection or rubbish removal service doesn’t require separation, this process helps children understand the differences between recyclable materials.

Teach Them How To Reuse Things

We all know the three Rs of recycling: reduce, reuse, and recycle (though some education systems teach as many as nine Rs, including repurposing, repairing, and more). Let’s focus on reuse for now. You might be wondering how to teach children to safely reuse the items they use every day.  Children can reuse items in the same way adults do.

For example, teach your children to avoid single-use plastic items and instead utilize a refillable water bottle, thermos, or lunch box. Carefully choosing the materials you use to pack their lunches can have a significant impact. Instead of using a disposable paper bag, choose a lunch box for them to take to school every day and stock it with reusable containers.

Don’t Forget About E-Waste

There’s no doubt about the impact of technology on students’ ability to learn while at school and at home, but this technology won’t last forever. When discussing recycling, you should also tell your children about the impact that electronics can have on the environment. After all, when we throw away electronics like old smartphones and computer parts, these pieces typically end up as e-waste in a landfill, which is particularly harmful to the environment.

It might be difficult for your child to understand that the smartphone in their hand or their school laptop could one day end up in a landfill. Do your best to explain to them that everything has a lifespan. Hang onto old electronics such as flip phones and old computer accessories to show them that even items that were considered high-tech at one point won’t last forever.

When their electronics do start to show signs of age, teach your kids responsible ways to dispose of them, such as taking them to a local e-waste collection facility or sending them to the manufacturer for repairs or refurbishing.

There are many distinct recycling guidelines and details that children don’t always learn in school. Knowing how to teach your children about the importance of recycling will help supplement the basic lesson they learn in school. These tips will help solidify the concepts and practices of recycling; hopefully, your kids will go on to teach the next generation as well.

The rapid boom in online classes and courses made it essential for every student to own a laptop or a PC. As per stats, around 95 percent of undergraduate students in the United States own a laptop.  Even after having powerful machines in their hands, most students are unaware of how to make the most of their laptops.

In this article, we have shared the top 8 ways to improve your productivity as a student using your laptop.

1.  Say Hi! to Productivity Tools

Productivity tools aren’t meant just for professionals, you can also use them to improve your productivity as a student. These tools include reminders, calendars, and other applications that can help you keep track of your schedule.

Install these applications and tools on your laptop, and you will have everything in one place. We also recommend installing ad-blockers as they will help you maintain focus while browsing, and those unwanted ads won’t disturb you during the class.

2.  Avoid Installing Distracting Apps

Modern laptops have plenty of storage space, and that’s why most students install numerous apps on their computers. However, in order to make the most out of your computer, you need to keep it free from distracting apps.

Uninstall all applications that you do not use and are not helpful to you for anything. A clean laptop runs much more efficiently, so there will be fewer lags, and you will get better performance.

Do not forget the extra space you get by deleting unwanted apps! You can utilize this space to store the recorded classes and other essential files.

3.  Learn How to Take Notes Effectively

Much of the criticism of laptops for students pertain to note-taking. While most students believe that writing notes by hand is the best way, typing them on your laptop is better, as per experts.

When you take notes using your laptops, you don’t have to be selective since you can write fast. Install applications such as MS Word and Grammarly to ensure you can take notes quickly without making any mistakes.

Also, sharing these notes is easy, and you can have them on any device you own, such as your smartphone.

4.  Have Shortcuts to Important Apps for Ease Access

Nowadays, students have to attend multiple online classes in a day, which calls for the need for applications like Zoom. Searching for the app on your laptop may not be that convenient, so having its shortcut will simplify things for you.

Similarly, organize all shortcuts in one place so that you can launch the app you want. You can even create shortcuts based on the lectures to save your precious time.

5.  Clean Up and Organize Your Laptop

As kids, we all had a computer with a messy desktop, and finding an app to launch was a task back then. However, this should not persist now, and if you are doing this, it’s time to put a full stop.

Cleaning a laptop is one of the most important tasks every student should do to ensure proper usage. By cleaning, we mean removing the files that you do not use anymore. Also, you should organize the PC to ensure that you don’t have to find the programs you want to launch.

Everything from the recorded classes to the applications should be readily accessible.

6.  Install All Apps Required in the Class

While opting for most courses, you’ll come to know about the laptop configurations required to enroll in them. Similarly, you can find information on the apps and tools required for a class.

For example, in a drawing class, you will need MS Paint and other apps that help you paint. Having these apps already installed on your laptop saves precious time, and you can keep up with what the tutor is teaching.

A Pro Tip

Make sure to update these apps to the latest version to avoid technical glitches and bugs.

7.  Always Keep the Battery Charged Fully

Most students pay attention to the installed apps and the aesthetics of the laptop. However, the battery is its soul, and you should never ignore it. If you are studying from a classroom, you should keep the battery charged to 100% before you leave your house.

Imagine your laptop running out of charge when the teacher is explaining an important concept. Not every desk in the classroom has a charging port, so keeping your laptop’s battery full every time is important.

8.  Always Create a Backup of the Essential Files

Another hack for students to make the most out of their laptops is creating backups of the essential files. Always create a backup of those recorded class videos and notes to ensure that you do not lose important data if your laptop gets damaged or in the event of any other unforeseen event.

Save the backups somewhere else, for example, in an external drive or on cloud storage, to have access to it at all times.

Closing Thoughts

We hope these eight ways will help you be more productive and get the most out of your laptop as a student. Always choose a laptop that meets your needs and has the right configuration depending on your course or class’s needs.

Here’s some detailed information on which is the best laptop configuration for students in case you need some help in choosing a machine.

Lastly, don’t forget to install a reliable antivirus since students usually connect to external wireless networks, so safety is a must for improved productivity.