10-Minute Speech Practice That Doesn't Require Sitting Still

Last updated 2026-07-10

Why do toddlers learn nouns before verbs in the first place?

Nouns are easier. That's the short answer, and the research backs it. Objects sit still. You can point to a cup, hand it over, and say "cup" ten times until the word sticks. A verb like "pour" exists for a second and then it's gone. The action has to be happening right now for the word to mean anything.

Linguists call this the noun bias in early word learning. English-speaking toddlers build early vocabularies that lean hard toward nouns, partly because caregivers use far more object labels than action words during play ^[1]. The child hears "ball" thirty times a day and "throw" maybe five. Ball wins.

There's a second reason, and it's on us. Most parents point at things all day long. We hand babies objects, we name what we see in books, we ask "what's that?" It's natural. But it quietly teaches kids that words are mostly names for stuff, not descriptions of what happens.

This isn't a disorder. A toddler who only uses nouns at 18 months is doing something developmentally normal. The concern starts when the noun-only pattern lasts past the point where verbs should be showing up, roughly 18 to 24 months, and when it's blocking two-word combinations. "More juice" is a combination. So is "daddy go" or "ball fall." None of those happen without at least one verb.

When should a toddler start using action words?

By 24 months, most children use at least 50 words and start putting two words together, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association ^[2]. Those first combinations almost always carry a verb: "go bye-bye," "eat more," "dog run." No verb, no sentence.

Here's a rough developmental picture:

These ranges pull from normative data across several studies, and there's real spread around every number. A child at 22 months with 4 spontaneous verbs might be doing fine. The same child with zero action words and stalled noun growth is worth a closer look.

Past 24 months with only nouns and no two-word combinations at all? That's a reasonable point to request a speech-language evaluation. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends developmental surveillance at every well-child visit and formal screening at 18 and 24 months ^[3]. You don't have to wait for a pediatrician to raise the flag. You can self-refer to early intervention services if your child is under 36 months.

What kinds of action words should you teach first?

Start with verbs your child sees all day and can say with barely any mouth movement. High frequency, low motor demand. That's the whole filter.

The best starter verbs tend to be: go, eat, drink, open, up, down, fall, jump, push, pull, stop, help, more (debated as a verb but it works like one), sit, and run. These show up in nearly every routine and most play sessions. They're short, which matters a lot for a kid still figuring out how speech motor planning works.

Skip verbs that are rare in your house. "Excavate" is a real action, but if it never comes up, it won't stick. Pair a word with something the child sees, wants, or does many times a day.

Action words tied to routines have a real edge. Bath time reliably brings "pour," "splash," "wash," and "rinse." Snack time brings "eat," "drink," "open," and "spill." Because routines repeat at predictable times, you get spaced practice for free, no drilling required.

One more thing: don't skip social-action words. "Bye," "hi," "no," and "uh-oh" work as actions in context even if they don't parse as verbs grammatically. They give a child a way to comment on what's happening, which is the whole point of a verb.

How do you actually teach verbs at home without formal therapy sessions?

The tool speech-language pathologists reach for first is self-talk and parallel talk. Self-talk means narrating your own actions live: "I'm pouring the juice. Pour. Pour the juice." Parallel talk means narrating what your child does: "You're jumping. Jump! Jump!" Both glue the word to the action happening right now, which is exactly what verb learning needs.

Keep your models short. If your child uses mostly single words, model mostly single words and very short two-word phrases. Flooding a one-word talker with full sentences teaches nothing usable. Match your language to one step above where the child is, then wait.

The waiting is the part people skip. Most parents fill silence right away because silence feels like failure. It isn't. Research on focused stimulation, a strategy studied in children with language delays, shows that repeated input paired with real pauses gives the child room to attempt the word ^[4]. Pause 5 to 10 seconds after modeling a verb before you help or redirect.

Play that's naturally action-heavy makes all of this easier. Bubbles ("pop," "blow," "fall"), ball play ("throw," "roll," "catch," "fall"), water tables ("pour," "splash," "scoop"), and cause-and-effect toys ("push," "open," "spin") work because the child is motivated and the actions are visible and repeating.

A few rules that carry most of the weight:

• Say the verb at the exact moment the action happens, not before or after.
• Say it once or twice, clear and simple. Don't ask "can you say jump?"
• React warmly to any approximation. "Ba!" for "ball" counts. So does "juh!" for "jump."
• Drop the object-labeling habit during play. When your child pushes a car, say "push," not "car."

None of this is fancy. It's the language you were already using, aimed differently.

Does the "object label trap" make verb learning harder?

Yes, and the mechanism is simple. When you respond to every attempt by labeling an object, you teach the child that naming things gets results. The child says "ball" and you talk about the ball. Great reinforcement for nouns, zero input for verbs.

The pattern feeds itself. The child learns a strategy (name the thing) that works. Why try a different strategy (name the action) when the old one keeps paying off?

The fix isn't to ignore nouns. It's to widen what you respond to and what you model. If your child holds up a cup, say "drink" or "want drink" instead of just "cup." You're honoring the communication attempt while nudging the vocabulary somewhere new. Speech-language pathologists call this expanding or recasting, and it's one of the best-studied naturalistic techniques in child language intervention ^[5].

Recasting means taking what the child said and restating it with a small grammatical add-on. Child says "dog." You say "dog run" or "dog eats." You're not correcting them. You're modeling fuller language right after they've shown you they're locked onto that topic. The timing is what makes it work.

What if your child uses no words at all, not even nouns?

The strategies above assume some words are already there. If your child is mostly or entirely prelinguistic, communicating through gesture, pointing, or vocalizing without clear words, the road to action words starts somewhere else.

Before words come, children need to understand that communication works. Joint attention, the shared focus on an object or event between child and caregiver, is the groundwork. A child who points to show you something interesting is doing joint attention. That single skill predicts later language more reliably than almost anything else in the first two years ^[6].

If joint attention is thin or missing, building it will help more than drilling verb models. Peek-a-boo is a strong choice (it carries good action vocabulary too: "hide," "look," "found it"), along with chasing games and anything where the child has to look at your face to get the thing they want.

For children whose communication differences run deeper, AAC devices and augmentative communication systems can support verb learning alongside or before speech. The research is consistent: AAC does not delay speech, and it tends to support it ^[7].

If your child is on the autism spectrum and struggling to communicate, autism spectrum speech therapy takes a different shape, often putting social motivation and functional communication first. A certified speech-language pathologist (CCC-SLP) can find where your child is and build from there.

How many repetitions does a child need to learn a new verb?

Here's an honest one: nobody has clean data on this for verb-specific learning in toddlers with delays. The closest evidence comes from studies on fast mapping, the way children pick up a word after minimal exposure.

In typically developing children, fast mapping for nouns can happen in as few as 2 to 3 exposures in the right context. Verbs are harder. Research on verb versus noun retention found children need significantly more exposures to a verb to hit the same retention, because a verb forces the child to abstract an action category instead of just linking a sound to a stable object ^[8].

For children with language delays, the numbers climb higher. Focused stimulation studies typically pack 10 to 20 concentrated exposures to a target word into a session, across multiple sessions over several weeks, before expecting the child to produce it on their own ^[4]. That sounds like a mountain, but it's doable inside daily routines if you say the same verbs in the same spots every day.

So don't introduce ten new verbs this week. Pick two or three, use them relentlessly where they're most natural, and give it three to four weeks before you judge whether they're sticking.

Should you use books, videos, or apps to teach action words?

Books: yes, with conditions. Books where characters are clearly doing things (running, falling, eating, sleeping) and where you can point at the picture while saying the verb are genuinely useful. Wordless picture books are underrated because you narrate exactly what's happening without being chained to the text. Eric Carle's "From Head to Toe" is a classic for this. Every page is an animal doing one clear action.

Videos: limited. The research on screen-based word learning under age two is not encouraging. The video deficit effect, documented across studies through the early 2010s, found children under 24 months learned words much less well from video than from live interaction, even when the video was highly repetitive ^[9]. After 24 months the gap narrows, but live interaction still wins. A show full of action words in context isn't harmful, but it can't replace live narration.

Apps built around speech and communication support are a different animal than passive video. Apps that prompt caregiver-child interaction and track which words a child hears line up better with what speech therapy recommends than passive media. Little Words, for one, is an interactive companion that helps parents know what to model, which is closer to the adult-mediated input model than anything a child taps alone.

The rule that covers all of it: any tool that adds meaningful, contingent adult language during real activities is probably useful. Any tool that replaces it is probably not.

What does a speech therapist actually do to target verbs?

A speech therapist working on verbs in a toddler usually starts with a language sample. They observe or record the child in play and conversation, then break down what word types the child uses, how often, and in what contexts. That's the baseline before anything changes.

From there, a few approaches show up again and again:

Focused stimulation: The therapist picks 3 to 5 target verbs and threads them through play all session long, without making the child imitate. High input, low demand.

Milieu teaching: A naturalistic method where the therapist engineers a moment that creates a need for the target word. They might hold a toy out of reach until the child attempts "give" or "want." Done during play, never at a table.

Enhanced conversational recast: The therapist answers anything the child communicates by expanding it to include the target verb. If the child reaches for a ball, the therapist says "roll ball" or just "roll," then rolls it. No pressure, just input that follows the child's lead.

All of these carry moderate to strong evidence for toddlers and preschoolers with expressive language delays in the clinical literature ^[5]. They're also things you can do at home, imperfectly, and still get real results. Therapy is worth chasing if your child qualifies, but what happens in the other 23 waking hours matters at least as much as what happens in the therapy room.

If cost or access is the barrier, online speech therapy has grown a lot and works well for parent-coaching models, where the clinician teaches you the techniques instead of working with the child directly every session.

Are there signs a child's verb delay points to something more than a speech delay?

Possibly, and this one deserves a straight answer even though it's uncomfortable. Verbs demand understanding that actions exist as categories, that the same movement by different people still counts as "jump," that the word points to the event and not the person doing it. That's more abstract than noun learning, and some children who stall specifically on verbs are showing a pattern that warrants a wider look.

Children with apraxia of speech often produce words inconsistently regardless of type, but may seem to know more words than they can reliably say. The verb gap there is about motor programming, not understanding.

Children on the autism spectrum sometimes show a different shape: strong object vocabulary tied to their interests, thin social vocabulary, and limited verb use because verbs are usually about shared events between people. The supports that work best can look different. See autism spectrum speech therapy for more on that.

Children with broader language disorders may struggle with both input (understanding verbs) and output. If your child doesn't respond to simple action commands ("come here," "sit down," "give it to me") consistently by 18 to 20 months, that receptive gap is worth flagging to a speech-language pathologist fast. Early intervention before age 3 is more effective than the same services started later, based on evidence reviewed by the National Research Council ^[10]. See early intervention for how to start.

None of this is a diagnosis. It's a reason to get a proper evaluation from a certified speech-language pathologist, which you can request directly through your state's early intervention program without a physician's referral.

What are the fastest wins parents report when teaching verbs?

The first change parents notice is that their child starts commenting. Before verbs, kids mostly request: "cookie," "up," "mommy." Once verbs stick, the child can say what's happening: "fall down," "doggy run," "uh-oh spill." That shift from requesting to commenting matters because it shows the child is using language to share an experience, not only to get things.

The second win is that two-word combinations almost always ride on a verb. Give a child even two or three reliable verbs and combinations start faster than parents expect. "Dog eat," "ball go," "daddy stop" are simple, but they're sentences in structure. Real milestone.

The third win is quieter. Once you're listening for verb chances instead of only object-naming chances, you find them everywhere. Mealtime alone holds eat, drink, pour, spill, open, stir, bite, and chew. That stops feeling like work once it's habit. It gets kind of satisfying.

The hard part: it takes weeks of consistency, not one focused afternoon. The parents who get the best results usually pick two or three verbs, drill themselves (not the child) on using those verbs every day in natural moments, and stick with it long enough for the input to pile up. Little Words can track which verbs you're modeling across the week and flag which ones your child seems to be catching, which takes some of the guesswork out of it.

Frequently asked questions

My 2-year-old says 40 words but they're all nouns. Is that a delay?

At 24 months, ASHA expects at least 50 words and the start of two-word combinations. If your child's 40 words are all nouns and no combos have shown up yet, that's a reasonable flag. It doesn't mean something is definitely wrong, but it's worth tracking closely or requesting a speech-language screening. Adding deliberate verb input now is low-risk and high-upside either way.

What's the difference between a late talker and a child with a language disorder?

A late talker typically has age-appropriate comprehension and catches up with minimal support; the delay is mostly expressive. A language disorder involves trouble with the rules and structure of language itself, affecting both understanding and speaking. Roughly 50 to 70 percent of late talkers catch up on their own by school age, but there's no reliable way to predict which ones without evaluation, which is why early screening matters.

Can watching TV shows actually teach verbs to toddlers?

Minimally, and never as your main strategy. The video deficit effect, documented in research through the early 2010s, shows children under 24 months learn much less from video than from live interaction. Some action-heavy shows may help a child hear verbs in context, but they can't pause, repeat, or respond to what your child does, which is exactly what makes live adult interaction work for language.

What are the first 5 verbs I should teach my toddler?

Go, eat, up, open, and fall are strong starters. They're high-frequency in nearly every household, short and easy to say, and tied to activities most toddlers care about. Once those start appearing, add push, jump, stop, and help. The specific verbs matter less than choosing ones that genuinely show up in your child's daily routine several times a day.

How do I teach verbs without it feeling like drilling?

Don't drill. Use self-talk and parallel talk during activities you're already doing. When you pour a drink, say "pour." When your child jumps on the couch, say "jump" in a normal, happy voice. The goal is flooding the environment with verbs during real moments, not sitting at a table with flashcards. The child should feel like they're playing. You're the strategic one.

Should I correct my toddler when they use the wrong word or leave out the verb?

No. Corrections raise pressure and often cut how much the child talks. Use a recast instead: repeat what they said with the verb added naturally. If the child says "ball," you say "ball roll" or "kick ball," then do the action. That gives a correct model with no sense of failure. Children take this kind of indirect feedback well without shutting down.

Does bilingual exposure make it harder for a toddler to learn verbs?

No, bilingualism doesn't cause verb delays. Bilingual children may have slightly smaller vocabularies in each single language at 18 to 24 months compared to monolinguals, but their combined vocabulary across both languages is comparable. Verb learning follows similar patterns in both. If a bilingual child has a verb gap, the strategies are the same: more action-based input in both languages across daily routines.

Can sign language help a toddler who is stuck on nouns learn verbs?

Yes, and it's reasonably well-supported. Signs can pair with spoken verbs to make the action word stand out and get produced before mouth-motor coordination catches up. Signs for jump, eat, drink, more, and stop are easy to learn and use. The key is saying the spoken word at the same time as the sign, not instead of it, so both input channels stay active.

How long does it take to see results from verb-focused strategies at home?

Most parents who stay consistent with verb input in daily routines see the first new action words within 3 to 6 weeks. Two-word combinations with those verbs often follow within another 4 to 8 weeks. Timelines vary a lot based on the child's starting point, how intense the input is, and whether something like hearing is affecting progress. If nothing moves after 8 weeks of steady effort, request an evaluation.

What if my child understands verbs (follows directions) but won't say them?

Receptive-expressive gaps like this are common and generally a good sign, meaning comprehension is intact. The gap points to production, not understanding. That means the strategies above should work well. Keep modeling, ease off question pressure, and give the child credit for any attempt. Some kids store a lot of input before they're ready to produce it.

At what age should I worry if my child still isn't using verbs?

If your child has no spontaneous action words by 20 months, or no two-word combinations by 24 months, request a speech-language evaluation. Earlier is better. Children under 36 months qualify for free early intervention services through the federal IDEA Part C program, and research consistently shows earlier support leads to better outcomes. Waiting to see if the child grows out of it carries a real cost.

Can I teach verbs through books even if my child won't sit still for reading?

Yes. You don't need to read the whole book. Pick one page with a clear action, name it, act it out, and move on. Wordless books help because you choose what to narrate. Even 3 to 4 minutes of active book interaction with clear verb modeling is worth it. If your child won't sit, stand at a shelf and flip pages fast, landing on action scenes and saying the verb before moving on.

Sources

1. Child Development, Sandhofer & Smith (2001), noun bias in early vocabulary: English-speaking toddlers' early vocabularies skew heavily toward nouns compared to verbs, partly because caregivers use more object labels during play
2. ASHA, Late Language Emergence clinical overview: By 24 months, most children use at least 50 words and begin combining two words together
3. American Academy of Pediatrics, Developmental Surveillance and Screening policy: AAP recommends developmental surveillance at every well-child visit and formal screening at 18 and 24 months
4. Girolametto, Pearce & Weitzman (1996), Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, focused stimulation: Focused stimulation using repeated input paired with meaningful pauses gives children with language delays space to attempt target words; studies typically use 10 to 20 exposures per session
5. ASHA, Evidence Maps, spoken language disorders in children: Recasting and milieu teaching approaches have moderate to strong evidence for toddlers and preschoolers with expressive language delays
6. Tomasello & Farrar (1986), joint attention and early language, Child Development: Joint attention predicts later language development more reliably than almost any other measure in the first two years
7. ASHA, Augmentative and Alternative Communication overview: Research is consistent that AAC does not delay speech development; it tends to support it
8. Childers & Tomasello (2002), Journal of Child Language, verb vs noun retention: Children need significantly more exposures to verbs than nouns to reach the same retention, because verbs require abstracting an action category rather than linking a sound to a stable object
9. Robb, Richert & Wartella (2009), video deficit effect, Developmental Science: Children under 24 months learned words significantly less well from video than from live interaction, even when the video was highly repetitive
10. National Research Council, Educating Children with Autism (2001), National Academies Press: Early intervention before age 3 is more effective than the same services started later
11. IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part C (early intervention, birth to 3): Children under 36 months qualify for free early intervention services through the federal IDEA Part C program