First 100 Words - Advancing Your Toddler’s Vocabulary With Words and Signs

Now that your child can say or sign a few common words, you need to begin to expand his vocabulary to include different kinds of words.  Most babies learn nouns, or names of people, places, and things first.  Remember that your baby also needs words for actions (verbs), locations (prepositions), and descriptions (adjectives/adverbs) so that he can combine these to form phrases.  Children typically begin to produce phrases when their vocabularies are close to 50 words.   It’s almost impossible for your child to make the jump from words to phrases unless he has expanded his vocabulary.  If your child isn’t yet talking, but has become  a good signer, be sure to expand his signs too.  Below are lists of words by category that most children include in their early vocabularies, for first 100 or so words, compiled from several sources.  If your child is not yet talking and you would like to know the sign for word, you can cut and paste the following link to your browser to search for a demonstration of the sign - http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm

Social Function Words 

more, please, thank you, hi/hello, bye-bye, again, sorry, uh-oh, yes/uh-huh/okay, no/uh-uh

Common Action Words (Verbs)

eat, drink, go, stop, run, jump, walk, sleep/night-night, wash, kiss, open, close, push, pull, fix, broke, play,want, hug, love, hurt, tickle, give (”gimme”), all gone, all done, dance, help, fall, shake, see, watch, look, sit, stand (up), throw, catch, blow, cry, throw, swing, slide, climb, ride, rock, come (”C’mon”), color/draw      

Location Words (Prepositions)

up, down, in, out, off, on, here, there (Plus later ones such as around, under, behind, over at/after age 3)

Descriptive Words (Adjectives/Adverbs)

big, little, hot, cold, loud, quiet, yucky, icky, scary, funny, silly, dirty, clean, gentle, wet, soft, fast, slow, color words (red, blue, yellow, green, pink, orange, purple, black, white, brown) and quantity words (all, none, more, some, rest, plus early number words - especially 1, 2, 3)

Early Pronouns

 me, mine, my, I, you, it (Then toward age 3 the gender pronouns such as he, she, him, her )

Just in case you’re wondering, here’s a list of the most common nouns:

ball, book, choo-choo, train, bike, rain, bubbles, car, truck, boat, plane, baby, bowl, spoon, diaper, sock, shoe, shirt, pants, hat, star, flower, house, tree, brush, towel, bath, chair, table, bed, blanket, light, cookie, cracker, chip, cheese, apple, banana, ice cream, cereal (Cheerios/ “O’s”), candy, milk, juice, water, dog, cat, fish, bird, duck, cow, horse, bunny, bear, pig, lion, elephant, giraffe, zebra, monkey, chicken, butterfly, bee, frog, alligator, snake   

Plus names for people - Mama, Dada, brother and sister names, pet names, grandparents & other family members, and favorite characters such as Elmo, Dora, Diego, etc…