Between the ages of two and three your child’s language will blossom. They’ll add many new words to their vocabulary every day and will begin talking in two and three word sentences. Here are some things you can do to help your two year old become a confident and competent communicator.

Top 10 Tips

1. Two year olds can understand a lot more words than they can use and will be able to follow simple two-step instructions, so let them practise. Ask them to ‘Please put this book away and bring me your pyjamas’, for example.

2. They will begin to mirror your social behaviour and learn to greet other people.

3. With your encouragement, they will also learn to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.

4. Sometime during this year, your child will be able to remember rhymes, simple lyrics to songs and fill in words and phrases when you’re reading to them. So sing lots, read lots and share rhymes,

5. Discuss ideas, opinions, experiences and feelings with your two year-old.

6. Let them know that what they say is important to you.

7. Rote counting is one thing, but before children can really ‘get’ the concept of numbers and understand how they work, they need to be able to classify or group things.

8. You can help your child master the skill of meaningful counting by asking them to pick out all the blue blocks or all the yellow pegs, for example.

9. Include information such as colours, numbers and names when you talk to your child.

10. And talk to them about concepts such as ‘bigger’, ‘smaller’, ‘more’ and ‘less’.