Kindergarten

Supporting Oral Language Development at Home
in the Early Years - and Beyond!

There are many simple, everyday ways to help strengthen your child’s oral language skills at home. Building strong oral language skills supports communication, social development, reading, and learning.

Here are a few ideas to try at home:

• Talk throughout the day

  • Describe what you are doing, seeing, or thinking during everyday routines such as cooking, shopping, driving, or getting ready for bed

  • Ask open ended questions (“What/How/Why do you think ..”)

  • Give your child time to respond

• Sing songs and  rhymes

  • Nursery rhymes, songs, and fingerplays help children learn new words, sounds, and sentence patterns

• Use read alouds to promote oral language:

• Choose books that feature repetitive, rhythmic, or interactive text that encourage participation and prediction

• Book List: Engaging Stories that Encourage Children to Listen and Express Their Ideas

• Video: Utilizing Interactive Read-Alouds to Support Oral Language Development

• Play interactive, imaginative and conversational games

  • I Spy, Puppet Conversations, 20 Questions, Simon Says, Board Games (Guess Who Jr.?, Headbanz Jr.,  Go Fish, etc.)

For More Information:

• Podcasts:

  • LitEarly 0-5 (Available free on Apple Podcasts):

    • 2/15/24: Pre-Reading Skills: Oral Language Development for Families

  • Science of Reading: The Podcast (Available free on Apple Podcasts):

    • Season 8, Episode 12: Features Dr. Catherine Snow on language and literacy, highlighting the need to expose children to complex vocabulary. 

• Article:

  • Young Children’s Oral Language Development