Speech

Through my observations in my class of two year olds, I have found that one of the largest issues with this age group is speech. Several of my students have problems articulating their speech to let others know what they want, or what they are trying to say. What makes me curious is to how these speech problems come about. Well, I found one answer to my question and I believe that it is because the parents have such a large influence on the speech of the children. One of the little boys in my class has a very difficult time with his speech and articulating what he wants. Well, one day his mom dropped him off to school and I noticed that she was talking to him in somewhat of a baby voice with a slight mumble. For example when saying choo choo train, she says what sounds like "choow choow twain." I realized at that moment what an influence teachers and especially parents can have on children and their speech when they are learning to talk because they mock what they hear from others. Because this student's mother was speaking this way, the student thought that he was speaking correctly in a way that could be understood because that is what he hears and assumes to be correct. Through this situation I have been more aware in my teaching of this age group to annunciate every single word that I say and to speak as clearly as possible because as teachers we have to remember to model every minute of every day because we are spending the most time with children and therefore should set great examples, even in something as little as speech.