How to Teach The Pronouns I and You to Preschoolers

By Mahak Arora - Updated: October 31, 2018

Your baby is growing up to a point beyond “mumma” and “dadda”. Now he recognises people and objects well but can’t seem to wrap his head around the difference in pronouns. Here is how you can help your child understand the difference and the correct usage of “I”, “you”, “he” and “she”.

Is your child mixing up his me’s and you’s? Have you been trying hard to teach him the difference and failing? Don’t fret, this is completely normal and we’ve got just the solution for you to easily teach your child his pronouns.

1. Getting Started

Language is a challenging milestone for all children and learning grammar is definitely not the easiest thing. Pronouns are confusing to a child because when you speak to him you refer to him as “you”. Your child with his natural tendency to mimic, will also refer to himself as ‘you’. To tackle this mimicking, you need to point at your child and say “me” over and over till he mimics. At the same time, it is important to still refer to him as “you” while speaking to him.

2. Difference Between Boy and Girl

When a child understands the difference between “he” and “she” it gets a lot easier to learn pronounces in all their tenses. You can start by asking your child through pictures “Is that a girl or a boy?” You can use family or friends’ pictures or even characters from books. Keep practising this till your child gets the difference. To make it more interesting you can add a points system and a reward for correct answers. ||

3. Using Pronouns in Sentences

Once your child can recognise the difference between a girl and a boy, you can begin to teach him to use pronouns in short phrases. Ask a question like “who wants this chocolate?” and your child will respond with an “I want it.” This may take some practice before you can move on to sentences. You can continue showing the child pictures of people doing activities. You can say things like “he is riding a horse” and then ask your child “Who is riding the horse?”

This entire process takes time so it is important that you do not lose your patience. It is also important to resist the urge to correct your child every time he is incorrectly using pronouns. That may put too much pressure on him. Have faith in your child and be there to tell him the right usage of pronouns. Once he gets the hang of it, you will realise that patience was the key all along.

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