How good is your almost 3 year olds language?

[lovelypair]

DS is 3 in May, he has a good good vocabulary and cant count to 14, knows his colours, up down, big small, sore, hot cold etc ect and to DH and me communicates really well, but today nursery key worker said I needed to speak to him more (WTF i'm always talking to him!) and read with him as he needs to be pulling more sentences together!!

Should I be worried?

It sounds as though it's the keyworker who needs help with communication skills. Telling parents that they should speak to their child more and read to them more is a terrible way to express concerns about language.

From what you've said I would've thought your ds was fine, but I'm not an expert. Mine have all had very different language skills to each other at this age so I'm not entirely sure what the typical skills should be.

the eyfs says that children have targets now, as in, their stages of developement are monitered. Some dim nursery nurses have interpreted this to mean that if they aren't doing as well in some areas, they are failing. Personally, I would speak to the manager about your concerns before booking him into see a speech therapist!

lovelypair, my DD2 is also going to be 3 in May and doesn't sound as far on as yours

I wouldn't be worried about it, he sounds as if he as a good vocabulary

He sounds fine. My DD1 is just 3 and sounds very similar and I think she's above average - I would . She's not so hot on physical things though.

It reminds me of the nursery nurse who, when DD was struggling to settle at nursery, suggested I get her out of the house more. She suggested that I try taking her to the park and let her mix with other children . Like I kept her locked in a cupboard all day!

I think what RC says makes sense. I think it's someone taking targets too literally.

Thanks! I feel slightly better now, this is all new to me because as far as we were concerned we thought DH language was really coming along. Every morning DH has been saying "mummy are you happy?" and on mothers day DH taught him to say "I lav you mummy"

When I told her that DS tells me what goes on at nursery i.e. last week "Henry he fighting he bad" she was surprised, probably because he was right!

Anyway I think I will speak to her again tomorrow as our meeting was cut short and give her an opportunity to explain what she means exactly by "talking to him more" I mean if there are targets in the toddler room she needs to explain them to me...

oh FWIW I meant he CAN count to 14 not can't!

Thanks again for your replies...

lovelypair, I honestly think that he sounds as if he is doing fine

my DD2 is a little slower than DD1 one but I think its because she doesn't need to speak as much iyswim AND she's too fond of her dummy, without her dummy she blethers away like a wee old woman

don't let them worry you

He sounds perfectly normal for his age- mine is 3 in June, and he can count to 10, knows colours, and has recently started putting together sentences at an alarming rate! It was only a couple of months ago i was worried that he was hardly putting 2 words together, now he hardly stops talking!

I think the key worker needs help with communication, not your DS!

IMO if DS is spending time in a nursery then it's up to the key worker to be talking to him more, not you, if she's so concerned.
She seems a bit tactless TBH, I am quite shocked, as your DS's development sounds completely normal.
How much time does he spend in the nursery? Could this have an effect on speech development? Don't know, just a thought.

how patronising . from what you describe it doesn't sound like there are any obvious issues. and if there were any problems such a vague comment is rather unhelpful - as kids with language problems don't just magically pick up language just from hearing lots of it, but need more focussed advice... when SALT was advising on working on DS's sentence length, the first areas to work on were verbs and prepositions. I would speak to nursery manager, see if she has anything more helpful or more detailed to report.