How our baby learned to say her ABC's

I often wonder when people say my child is able to do this or that HOW did they teach that? I do understand that all children learn at different times and I am not big on comparing children. I do love to see and hear how other moms teach little children. I am going to try to post some of the how I do it on this blog. PLEASE understand I am NOT a person with a teaching degree. I am just a mom of 2 who tries to educate my children and every so often something works well for us. This might not work for you. I have noticed in my 2 children they both love to learn but in very different ways. This story most likely will make you laugh.

This HOW story is saying ABC's. This kind of happened naturally with very little work on my part. My daughter started yelling HEY at around 10 months. I thought it was hey anyway. Whenever someone would come into the room she was in she would shout HEY! Baby talk is funny sometimes. A Mom KNOWS what her child is saying..... WELL, I like to think I know what my baby is saying this story shows I might not ALWAYS know. LOL! I thought she was saying HEY! I would always reply hello! This went on for a month or so. Then one day she was shouting HEY, Hey, HEY! at my husband. He responded with B. I thought B????? What is he talking about. She shouted again hey. and then once again my husband said "B!" It then clicked! He thought she was saying A. I was sure my husband didn't know our daughter was saying hello by shouting hey. I giggled to myself thinking silly guy he doesn't know what our baby is saying. I have with both my children tried to use baby chatter to get words. Like if a child is saying bu bu bu I will pick up a book and say book? I know that isn't what they are saying but I If I can find something close to the word I will try to get them to use it. Later in the day when my husband was at work my baby started with the hey again. I started to think...... Hmmm.... ABC's are higher on my list than having her shout hey at people...... Maybe my hubby is on to something..... Then I did it! I replied to my my daughter with a loud excited B! She yelled A and I would nod smile and yell B. Later in the day we did A, B, C!!!! In just a few days we could do over half the alphabet. THIS WAS FUN!!! About 2 weeks after my daughters first birthday we took a long trip to visit my husbands family. Demi started with her A! I said "B" and on we went.... By this time she wouldn't repeat the ones she knew she would just say the next one so it went like this....


Baby "A"
Mommy "B"
Baby "C"
Mommy "D"
Baby "E"
Mommy "F" She didn't know what came next so she repeated me.
Baby "F" (sounded more like ehehfffsshh)
Mommy "G"
Baby "G"
Mommy "H"
Baby "H"
Mommy "I"
Baby "I" (pointing to her eye)
Mommy "J"
Baby "J"
Mommy "K"
Baby "K"
It went on like that for L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S (Baby said essssssssssss), T, U, V then my favorite W (baby duba duba you)X, Y, Z! We all had fun with it. We said them just like that a few times.

A few hours later (still riding in the car) my husband tried to get her to do it again...... Daddy said A and baby looked confused! She wouldn't play along. LOL!!!

My husband turned to me and said "How do you get her to do that?" I laughed because it started out as something he taught her but he didn't even know it. Once I told him to shout A like he was yelling Hey. He did and then she was happy to play along. I guess you can say the way we taught my little girl to say her ABC's is to shout them when she was learning to talk. We still play this game sometimes.

I want to tell you at that time she didn't know what any letters looked like or what they sounded like. She didn't even know any of the song. She just repeated me and we used that as a starting point to build on.

That is the peak into a fun learning moment in our house. We have TONS of not so fun moments and as new ones come up or I remember some of the old ones I will share them also.