Recently learnt that children pick up words in various methods. Really interesting to note that infants start associating meaning with sound from 6 months on! They also pick up nouns faster and more easily than verbs or more abstract words. So I think it'll be good to try to assign a visual image to a verb (walking, running etc.). Also, they learn best when people talk TO them. Not AROUND them. Human interaction works best and plopping them in front of a screen and watching phonics videos actually do not work as well. I found out quite a bit of info from http://blog.nus.edu.sg/babytalk/ if any one is keen Let me know what you think or what you've observed in your child