Everything you do as part of your everyday routine is an opportunity to provide your child with language stimulation. You do not need any special materials or any extra time.Â
Below are some ideas you can enhance your child's language.
Cooking provides a wealth of language opportunities and children love to help. Talk about the colors and names of the ingredients, if they are wet or dry, the equipment needed, how the food looks, tastes and smells, and what order you need to do the things in.
Ask your child to help by giving your child a series of two or three directions to follow. Example: Please give me the milk from the refrigerator and a spoon from the drawer.
At mealtime, talk about the names of foods and which are hot and which are cold.
Make a fruit salad. Name the fruits, talk about colors, tastes, smells, textures. Describe 3 things about each fruit. Discuss similarities and differences, where they grow, etc.
At bath time, discuss different actions such as splashing, washing, pouring, spilling, scrubbing and talk about the actions as you do them.
When riding in the car, talk about who is in front, and in back. Find specific types of vehicles such, motorcycles or trucks.
Read stories:
Ask questions about the story. Who is the story? What are they doing? When is the story taking place?
Making inferences: What will happen next?
Take characters/objects from the story and tell three things about them. Example: ball is round. it is a toy. it bounces, etc.
Discuss object functions. Example: a ball bounces, rolls, we can throw it.
Definitions: A ball is a toy that we play with.
Retell the story. What happened first, next, last, before, after.
Name objects or pictures.
*Categorize objects: at the grocery story talk about the different foods. Which ones are fruits, vegetables, meats, snacks, etc. Talk about different animals and where they live, how they are the same and different. This can be done with almost any category (hot things, round things, occupations, places, etc.).
Describe characteristics of objects. Shape, size, color, unusual markings that are different from similar objects. Example: A tiger is an animal. It is orange and black. It has stripes and lives in a zoo and growls.
Memory activities:
*Following directions. Example: Please get me the lettuce, tomatoes and carrots out of the refrigerator.
*Clap a sequence of rhythms and have your child clap the sequence back.
*Play memory games. Name the objects, describe them, define them, state the category, and match the pairs.
*Play games, talk walks and talk about what you see, sing songs, recite nursery rhymes, make up plays and act them out.
*READ, READ, READ!!
And don't forget.....
Talk about things you do.
Talk about places you go.
Answer questions.
Listen to your child.
Read and talk about books.
Tell stories together.
Play games with your child.
Pretend with your child.
Praise your child.