SPEECH AND LANGUAGE IDEAS FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
By: Sheryl A. Balciar
Remember, you do not always
have to set up structured times for your child to increase her speech and
language skills. It can occur at
anytime, at any place, with any person she is with. Use the idea of “incidental teaching,” which
is using everyday routines to create learning experiences.
Talk to your child! Do not use baby talk, but rather use full
words and sentences. For example, if she
gets a ball and throws it to you, say “Oh, you want to play with the blue
ball. Good throw! Are you ready? Here it comes! Yeah, you caught it! Way to go!”
There is an opportunity for language at all times. Expect that.
Other ideas for “incidental teaching”:
1.)
Label what you
see, hear, feel, taste, and smell while you are cooking, playing, walking,
shopping, cleaning, bathing, dressing, etc.
2.)
Label your
child’s body parts when taking a bath (e.g. “This is the way we wash our
hair…”), getting dressed, changing diapers, etc. Children love the song “There’s a spider on
your (part) on your (part).”
3.)
When eating and
drinking, sabotage your routines. For
example, if eating a cracker, give your child a piece (not a whole cracker) and
make her request “more” or “cracker” either with words, pictures, signs, or
gestures.
4.)
Read simple books
to your child. Label the pictures and
ask her to find them on the pages. Also,
ask her what she sees in the pictures so she can label them. Books about animals are great for young
children because you can model the sounds they make (e.g. moo, baa, oink,
neigh, woof, meow, etc). These are
easier than real words to produce.
5.)
While playing,
model the sounds cars and trucks make (e.g. vroom vroom, beep beep, honk honk,
etc).
6.)
When playing, use
the action words (e.g. jumping, eating, drinking, driving, flying, etc) as well
as the nouns you are playing with.
7.)
Play simple games
(e.g. tickling) and watch your child anticipate what is to come. Expect her to say what she wants (e.g. put
your hands up like you are going to tickle her, but don’t until she says
“tickle” or makes some sort of attempt).
8.)
Bombard
particular colors, concepts, vocabulary, initial sounds, etc each day. For example, have a “red day” where you wear
red, eat red foods, play with red toys, etc.
If bombarding a particular initial consonant, such as /b/, wear blue and
black clothes, eat bananas and burgers on buns, bounce or bat a ball, bop
balloons, etc.
9.)
While grocery
shopping, show her the foods you are buying and label them. Talk about the big/little ones, colors of
foods, textures (soft, hard), etc.
10.)
Teach understanding of words that will keep her safe (e.g. no, hot, stop,
wait).
11.)
Sing simple songs with repetitive lines and/or actions. Some examples are
Wheels on the Bus, Twinkle Twinkle
Little Star, Itsy Bitsy Spider, etc.
12.)
When eating colorful foods (rainbow goldfish crackers, fruit snacks, etc), give
one at a time and label each color,
and/or have her identify a color (you say “Get
the red fish,” or ask her “What color
did you get? Oh, you got the red
fish!”).
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