Back in Action & Talking about Repetition!

After a little break for the holidays and my family being sick with COVID, I am ready to focus on my blog again and sharing my literacy and language tips. This week on my instagram account, I focused on the importance of REPETITION. It is a key component to both literacy and language development. Plus children love repetition because it is predictable for them. Have you ever noticed your child will read or play the same game over and over and over? It's usually a silly game like "stinky toes!" or the famous "ah-choo" speech game (see below).

My younger son is now 19 months and he has about 3 books that are on REPEAT 24/7. He has now learned to fill in the words to some of the pages, find the book he wants from the shelf and request the book by (part of) its name.

Here are some of the benefits of repetition (Rae Lea Schaper):

• It's predictable

• Children enjoy it

• Supports brain development

• Reinforces memory and sequencing skills

• Improves vocabulary

• Allows the child to "read" along with familiar or memorized words

• Promotes positive independence

• Powerful tool for developing language

Some books are repetitive on their own! Books, like "Where's the Puppy?" by Karen Katz where each page it asks "Is puppy...?" and the answer is "NO!" It is so much fun to exclaim "NO!" with the kids and make it silly. Then at the end, of course they find the puppy. This is a series of books and she also writes them for holidays. We are enjoying the Valentine's Day theme now. "Where's Spot" and "Are you There Little Puppy?" have similar story lines. These are all great for working on yes and no questions too!

I am a visual learner, so I put together this picture to show you some books.

Here's a strategy to get your little one "reading" with you. At the end of a sentence, pause and WAIT (oh yes, there's that WAITING again!), see if the child will say the word! If not, model it. The more you read the same books, the quicker the child will catch on to the vocabulary and be able to "read" along with you.

Here's what it looks like in action:

This is my nephew reading "Are you there Little Puppy?" You can see how he is SO silly and really enjoying the repetition from the book.

In addition to books, repetition is a fantastic strategy for language development. You will repeat words until you are blue in the face but then one day the child will say it back to you! It pays off!

Here are a few activities:

*Putting animals to bed: night-night, shh!, wake up! You can complete the play scheme with these 3 words, but it's likely you will add some more in there, mostly so you don't drive yourself crazy!

*Bubbles: SO many opportunities for repetition with bubbles. Child requests bubbles. Other target words: pop-pop-pop, blow, up-up-up. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat

*Blocks: ah the blocks-likely one of the most frustrating toys to a toddler. They finally build their huge tower only for it to fall down on them! Grr! Luckily for us, it allows for more repetition! Here are some target words: up-up-up, block, uh oh, fall down!

*AAA-choo!: In case some of you aren't familiar~I have no idea who came up with this game but it seems to be coined a "speech" game. Basically you put something on top of your head and go "AHH-AHH-AHH-choo!" and have the item fall off your head. Kids LOVE this. They think it's the funniest thing in the world (well most kids, although it has scared some kids before too). And then of course they're asking for MORE! After a couple "Ah-ah-ah's" wait and see if the child will gesture or vocalize!

The activities can really be that SIMPLE! Remember the goal here is to be repetitive, so use words and short phrases and model them over and over.