First words, and how to help them come

Talk about what your child is looking at, not what you want them to look at. Following their attention is the single most reliable predictor of vocabulary growth in the research.

Leave gaps. After you say something, wait five full seconds. Toddlers need far longer than adults to assemble a response, and most of us fill the silence too fast.

In an Arabic and English home, keep each language attached to a person or a moment rather than mixing mid-sentence. Total words heard matters more than which language they are in.