How lengthening sentences help kids speak fluently?

Linked Table of Content

Use Increasing Utterance Length Teaching Resources To Improve Fluency
Understanding Mean Length Utterance By Age And Morpheme
Using Oral Sentence Generation Training To Improve Sentence Length
Frequently Asked Questions On Oral Sentence Generation Training

Use Increasing Utterance Length Teaching Resources To Improve Fluency

It is necessary for children to speak in complete sentences as they grow older. At the start, kids speak only in one-word sentences. They will only utter the name of the item that they need. You will hear babies say "milk," "mommy," or "ball" when they need any of these items. But it is essential for children to develop the habit of speaking in full sentences because that is the way they can become fluent in English. But before trying to increase sentence length, one must know what the mean length of utterance is.

The mean length of an utterance of MLU is the length of sentences spoken by a child. If the child speaks only one word all the time, then the MLU is 1. If your kids speak one word part of the time and two words occasionally, then these children can be said to have an MLU of 1.5. The mean length of utterance example for MLU 2.0 is "my ball." As they grow older, their MLU will increase. The importance of measuring the length is to know if your children are improving their speech capabilities as they grow older.

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Understanding Mean Length Utterance By Age And Morpheme

The child will improve his speech as it grows. So, the MLU will keep increasing as they age. Measuring the MLU will help to understand whether the child is speaking as well as he should at a particular age. If you find that your kids are not speaking long utterances as they should, then it will be good to try the increasing sentence length speech therapy and improve their speaking fluency. But before you go for that, as parents, you must understand the method used for measuring the length of utterances of your child.

MLU is measured as morphemes. When a child just utters a single word, it is one morpheme. But it is not as simple as that. A word is considered as one morpheme only if it cannot be divided to make two or more meaningful words. For example, "apple" is one morpheme as you cannot divide the word to get two words that have any meaning. But when measuring the word "apples," a value of two morphemes is given. This is because "apple" is one word, and the "s" is considered another word because it means "more than one."

When a child says "my ball," he is given credit for two morphemes. But when the same kid says "my balls," he is given a score of three as he has added the "s" to "ball." The child is given credit for telling a more complex sentence with a plural word. The other way children get higher scores is when they use present participle words. Such words can also be divided into two to get two words that make sense. In this way, you can calculate the mean length of utterance by age for your child.

The below chart of average MLU for kids of different ages will help to know if your kids are speaking sentences of the right length that they should be uttering.

12 - 26 months - 1.0 - 2.0

27 - 30 months - 2.0 - 2.5

31 - 34 months - 2.5 - 3.0

35 - 40 months - 3.0 - 3.75

41 - 46 months - 3.75 - 4.5

> 47 months - Above 4.5

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Using Oral Sentence Generation Training To Improve Sentence Length

So, how do you increase the length of sentences for your kids if they are not meeting the average MLUs for their age? There are specific training programs offered by us to improve speech fluency. We use various increasing utterance length training resources to make your children speak longer sentences. Increasing their vocabulary is one way to make them speak longer utterances. Research shows that children don't start combining words till they have around 50 words in their vocabulary. Even if they have so many words, they must have the right words that can help them say two-word sentences.

If their vocabulary is limited to only nouns, then there is no use. When you are trying to improve speech fluency by increasing sentence length, you must make sure that your kids know words other than nouns. They must know possessives like "my," negatives like "no," question words like "what," and demonstrative words like "that." Only if you teach the child such words will he be able to combine them with nouns to make longer sentences. When they learn such words, they will start saying "my ball," "no milk," etc., which are longer utterances.

Adding grammatical markers is another way of increasing sentence length and making their speeches more meaningful. When children say "want cookie please," it doesn't make much sense, though we can understand what they are trying to say. Helping them to add grammatical markers can help them say longer sentences. In the increasing sentence length speech therapy, the experts get the children to complete the sentence as "I want some cookies please." You can also try expansions. When the child says "go outside," you can expand it to "I go outside," thus helping the child make longer sentences.

Frequently Asked Questions On Oral Sentence Generation Training

How can parents help increase the length of their children's sentences?

One of the ways to increase sentence length is by improving the vocabulary of the child. When the kids learn verbs and other word forms, they are able to make longer sentences that make more sense. Adding grammatical markers is also a way to increase sentence length in children.

How can parents improve their 2.5-year-old child's speech?

The best way to improve two-and-a-half-year children's speech is by helping them increase their sentence length. When the sentence is long, all elements needed for a sentence become present, and this will make their speech clearer.