Did you know that babies and toddlers are laying the foundations for all of their communication skills as an adult? The idea that you need to teach them EVERYTHING might feel rather overwhelming. But don’t panic! You can help to boost your pre-school child’s speech and language development at home by introducing these simple activities.
What
is speech and language?
So you know that your child is developing
super-fast in the first three years. But you aren’t sure what it is they need
to learn or how to help them do it. Don’t worry – I have got you covered! The
speech and language skills being developed in the early years will lay the
foundation for your child’s communication skills throughout their life. But
what is speech and language?
Speech
Speech refers to the sounds and words we use. It
includes the way sounds are articulated using the muscles in our mouth, lips
and tongue. For example, when you were a toddler, you needed lots of practice
learning to move your tongue from the back of your mouth where you made the
sound ‘C’ all the way to the front of your mouth where you make the sound ‘T’.
Try it now. Say the word ‘CAT’ and focus on where your tongue is inside your
mouth.
Speech also covers the tone and pitch of your
voice and your ability to adjust the volume of your speech. There are also
natural rhythms to speech, where you pause, repeat noises or stop to draw
breath. All of these abilities can be thought of as the mechanical and
practical elements of speech.
Language
In contrast, language refers to the meaning of
what you are saying. It is embedded in the words you use and how you use them.
Language is the transfer of ideas from one person to another. It is how you convey
and understand messages. So language includes the meaning of each word and how
this changes depending on the context. It also refers to the way words are
built and put together, and how you might deliver these words differently in
different situations.
What
do pre-school children struggle with?
People of any age can have issues with speech, or
language, or both areas together. But even without any long term issues, young
children often struggle to communicate at this age. This is because the ages of
0-3 are when the foundation for all communication in life is being built. That
is a lot to learn! It makes it easy to mix up words, struggle with sentence
structure, reverse sounds and generally find communication hard work! So it is
really important to be supportive and help your child to build as strong a
foundation as possible.
So how can you boost your child’s speech and language development at home?
You are probably already doing lots of great
activities to support your child’s communication skills. But it’s important to
keep that learning going! So here are my top ten activities to boost your
pre-school child’s speech and language development at home.
1) Signing
Number 1 on my list of activities to boost your
pre-school child’s speech and language development at home is Signing. Did you
know that babies can learn their first sign from 5 months old? I loved taking
my son to baby signing classes. I took him to Tiny Talk classes from 6 months
old until 2 and half years old, and he learnt well over 50 signs. This meant he
could ask for milk, toys and even to use the potty at just 9 months old.
Babies can communicate very early on because they
have an innate ability to interact with others from birth. You can find some of the research here. Speech doesn’t catch up
until later on, so it’s great to give your baby a way to ask for what they want
and need before speech becomes available.
Signing provides a visual cue for key words you
use in day to day life. Tiny Talk classes use a baby version of British Sign Language. There is also Makaton which is another simplified version of the BSL.
It doesn’t really matter which version you pick, as long as you are consistent.
So your sign for milk is always the same. This way your baby has something
visual to attach to the sound you are making. Add this to actually receiving
milk and hey presto you have created a three step process for learning the word
milk.
Signing is a great way to boost your pre-school
child’s speech and language development at home and lots of nurseries use
Makaton or other simplified signing systems to aid communication too. Try
introducing just one sign a week and see how you get on. There are plenty of
free resources on the Makaton website. For toddlers and older children, signs
to accompany words like ‘help’ and ‘stop’ can be useful for learning social skills.
Learning to identify emotions and use the signs to name them can be useful when
those big toddler meltdowns happen too.
2) Story Sacks
Number two on my list of activities to boost your pre-school child’s speech and language skills is Story Sacks. Story Sacks are a fun way to engage your child in storytelling. Simply choose a story and fill a bag with items that represent characters and objects from the book.
This activity will help encourage a love of reading as it brings the story to life. It also expands the learning and provides opportunities to repeat nouns, introduce adjectives while describing the toys, and try out different verbs as you act out parts of the story. The tangible story sack provides a memorable and multi-faceted experience to help your child process the language in the story. It’s perfect for boosting speech and language skills!
3) Flashcards
Number 3 on my list of activities to boost your pre-school child’s speech and language skills is Flashcards. I love flashcards and have plenty of FREE printable packs you can download. Flashcards are perfect for games like matching, sorting and labelling. You can also include them in messy play or create a ‘search and rescue’ game by hiding them around the house.
Flashcards help your child by providing a visual clue along with the word. This additional information helps create a stronger memory of that word. In my packs, I include large photo flashcards and small photo word cards. This is so your child can start off focusing on the pictures, then you can include the words that go along with them.
Introducing written words is important because this will help to build your child’s whole word sight vocabulary. It’s possible to read words from an early age by imprinting the whole word like a picture and remembering the sounds that go along with it. This is the idiographic stage of reading and precedes the alphabetic stage where you are able to identify individual sounds or ‘phonemes’ from the written letters or ‘graphemes’.
4) Bedroom Door Signs
Number four on my list of activities to boost your pre-school child’s speech and language development introduces even more written language to your home. Bedroom Door Signs are a brilliant way to help your child recognise the importance of written language. You don’t have to make it complicated. Just pop a sign with your child’s name on their bedroom door.
It could be a picture they’ve drawn, a ‘do not disturb’ hanger, or even a framed print. This helps your child develop name recognition which is an important skill and a great tool for encouraging an interest in reading. Your child will love reading something that is all about them!
Door hangers can also introduce the idea of privacy which is a super important concept but can be tricky to teach. Help your child hang the sign up and close the door whenever they are getting undressed. You can even have fun playing knocking games. Check the name on the door sign, knock and wait for your child to open the door. You can pretend to be a postman if you like and introduce more written language with your child’s name written on an envelope.
The important thing here is to introduce written language around the home with signs and labels to help boost your pre-school child’s speech and language development.
5) Calendar
Number five on my list of activities to boost your pre-school child’s speech and language development at home is a Calendar. This is another great way to encourage reading and ideal for practicing conversational skills. I found this fab magnetic calendar on The Works website for only a fiver. It’s a lovely way to start the day and my son can easily pick out the season and the types of weather from the pictures.
He has a look out of the window and we chat about what the weather is doing today. Then I help him find the day and date to stick on too. Again, the calendar has plenty of written language and encourages us to use words that might not pop up in our usual conversations.
Why not have a child friendly calendar in your child’s room and an adult version in the kitchen? We even have days of the week underpants! These little additions add up to mean lots of speech and language opportunities in your home!
6) Activity Baskets
Number six on my list of activities to boost your pre-school child’s speech and language development at home are Activity Baskets. I started these for my son when he was 9 months old. I put together simple activity baskets to live in each of our bathrooms and the bedroom.
These are mainly filled with books but I have also included stickers, toys and even puppets on different occasions! Activity baskets are great for keeping your child entertained during toilet training, but you don’t have to limit them to the bathroom. Why not set up themed baskets in different rooms of the house? This will encourage your child to explore and have different topics to talk about throughout the day.
7) Story Stations
Number seven on my list of activities to boost your pre-school child’s speech and language development at home are Story Stations. Just like the activity baskets, you can set these up anywhere in your home. A story station is an area you have filled with items relating to one particular book. I love to add toys, household objects, multi-sensory items and of course a copy of the book! You could also include flashcards or cards with a question about the story for older children.
The idea is
informal exploration. So don’t try to structure it too much. Let your child
lead and see which parts of the story station grab their interest. Story
Stations can be a great way to celebrate different seasons too. Check out the
photo of our Halloween story station for Julia Donaldson’s book ‘Room on the
Broom’ above.
8) ‘Ask me about…’ Stickers
Number eight on my list of activities to help boost your pre-school child’s speech and language development is ‘Ask me about…’ Stickers. This is simply a plain, sticky label that you can grab from any stationary aisle. Whenever something grabs your child’s attention or when you’re trying to focus on a particular skill, write out an ‘Ask me about…’ Sticker and just finish the sentence.
For example, ‘Ask me about chickens’.
Then the next adult your child sees will hopefully be prompted to ask the
question. At the very least, they might ask what the sticker is for. And hey
presto! More conversation, more language and more learning!
9) Coat Hook
Number nine on my list of activities to boost your pre-school child’s speech and language development at home is a Coat Hook. When your child starts nursery, you will probably notice that they have a coat hook with their picture on it. The nursery also usually have somewhere your child can ‘register’. This might be a peg doll with their name on it or it might just be a name tag that can be moved from one location to another when your child arrives. These activities are brilliant for introducing sight vocabulary and encouraging name recognition.
So why not harness this fab learning and use it
at home too? Pop a coat hook at your child’s height in your home. Then label it with your child’s name. Easy
peasy. Encourage your child to hang their coat and bag up each day.
This will prompt them to look at their name label and it will hopefully elicit
an extra conversation each day. Perhaps you might suggest a warmer coat for the
weather or maybe you just ask how your child’s morning went. Whatever the
topic, more speech and language in your home is a bonus.
10)Visual Timetable
Finally, number ten on my list of activities to boost your pre-school child’s speech and language development at home is a Visual Timetable. Basically, a visual timetable is what it says on the tin. A few pictures which show what will be happening today. It really is that simple.
It helps your child to know what is happening now, what is happening next and what is happening after that or ‘then’. Children thrive when they have a safe, predictable routine to rely on. A timetable with detachable pictures can also be a great way to give your child some feeling of control. They can add a task while planning their day with you, and they can remove it when a task is completed.
If your child struggles with too much information, then just start with one picture at a time. I usually print off a piece of paper with ‘Now’ and ‘Next’ on it. Then I laminate it and use Velcro dots to attach smaller laminated squares with the photographs on. If you haven’t got a timetable, you can grab my Daily Visuals bundle for FREE here.
How will you boost your pre-school child’s speech and language development at home?
So there we have it! My top ten list of activities
to help boost your pre-school child’s speech and language development at home. The
bottom line here is that anything you can do to add more reading and talking
into your home is going to boost your child’s their speech and language
development. So which activities will you choose? Tag me @craftytoddlercompany in your posts and remember you can always
email me vikki@craftytoddlercompany.co.uk if you want to ask questions or simply let me know how you are getting on!
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