Fruit Toddler Cards

A child learns a word by experiencing the thing it names while hearing someone name it. Vocabulary cards extend that experience beyond the objects in the room and they help children understand that a real, three-dimensional fruit can be represented by a two-dimensional picture. The vocabulary a young child builds later becomes one of the strands that supports reading comprehension (Scarborough, 2001).

Choose 3 to 8 cards, sit at the child's eye level, and name each fruit clearly while the child holds or places the card. Then ask the child to do something with each card as you repeat its name: "Can you put the pineapple on the mat?" "Will you hand me the orange?" With toddlers, we typically give only these first two periods of the three-period lesson and save "What is this?" until the child is ready to succeed at it. Real fruit makes an easy extension: set a real orange next to its card and let the child hold, smell, and compare them.

Very young children connect a picture to the real thing more easily when the picture looks like the real thing. Removing the background keeps the focus on the fruit and showing fruits in proportion helps children compare sizes they see in real life.

Typically 18 months to 3 years, from first words through the toddler years of rapid vocabulary growth. They also work well for older children who need oral vocabulary support and in intervention settings.