Did you know?

Learning to read, write and have conversations begins at birth. Play with sounds, share books, draw pictures, an​​​d talk to your baby.

How?

• Have fun copying your baby’s sounds, noises and gestures.
• Use playful voices and make faces.
• Be face to face:
  • Play games like “peek a boo”, “pat a cake”, and “This little piggy”.
  • Make funny faces and sounds like “moooo” or ”putt, putt, putt”.
  • Sing songs with actions and fun sounds like “Wheels on the Bus”/“Old MacDonald ”.
  • Dance and sing your favourite songs with your baby.
• Use interesting, simple words like ‘wee’, ‘oops’, ‘wow’.
• Add actions to words (e.g., say “hi” and “bye” while waving).
• Let your baby play with bright picture books, board books, touch and feel books, and bathtub and rhyming books.
• Remember that she needs time to coo and babble without a soother in her mouth.

Where to go get help

For more information about how speech-language pathologists and audiologists can help, contact:

• Your doctor, public health nurse, or other health provider
• Your local health centre
• Visit the Talk Box - A parent guide to creating language rich environments​