Animal Sounds Can Help Kids Talk

According to a pediatric speech-language therapist, Becca Jarzynski, we should absolutely be teaching our kids animal sounds.

Why? Because children like them.

Your toddler may find it really funny when you make animal sounds. You can get them to smile because you are making silly sounds.

Most animal sounds are easy for children to make, and that leads to their first “words.”

Typical sounds like Moo, Neigh, Baa, and Meow are easy and fun sounds to make. They are also powerful ways to help a young child start talking.

As you understand the power of animal sounds, you can integrate them into your day to help your toddler start mooing, too. There are all kinds of things you can do, and it’s fun too.

• Make the sound when you see an animal.  This can be in a book, tv, coloring books, playing around, or an animal you observe. Dr. Jarzynski says the sillier you make the sound, the better!
• If you have animal figures at home, you can pair the toys with the sounds you are making. Your little one is likely to imitate you.
• Animal sounds are present in popular repetitive books, like Goodnight Moon, Blue Hat Green Hat, Moo Baa La La La, Brown Bear Brown Bear What do You See, and of course Little Blue Truck.
• Animal-like sounds are also common in lots of nursery rhymes and songs, like Old MacDonald.

These sounds may not seem like actual words to you, but they are helpful in helping children learn to associate simple sounds with pictures or objects. Because these sounds are easy to say, your little one is more likely to imitate them. Their success in imitating leads to them saying real words.

Dogs go woof

Cats go meow

Chickens go cluck

Horses go neigh

Pigs go oink

Doves go coo

Monkeys go hoo hoo haa haa

Goats go maa

Frogs go ribbit

Turkeys go gobble gobble

Birds to tweet tweet

Cows goes moo

Sheep go baa

Ducks goes quack

Elephants go bahruuhaa

Owls go hoot

Dolphins go Eeeheeehee

Roosters go cock-a-doodle-do

Lions go roar

References: Audio sound gathered from Soundbible.com. Images were gathered from Pixabay and Freepik.

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Gioula Chelten