Speech & Language

Here you can find simple tips how to make sure your children's speech and language keeps developing with you at home.

At nursery, we put a lot of emphasis onto speech and language and weave a lot of these simple tricks into your children's day. The main reason for our emphasis on speech and language is the children's well-being and happiness. Most of the children who are using gestures and signs are having trouble to make adults understand quickly what they actually want or need from us. This can then result in so called 'tantrums', because the children are frustrated that we do not understand them. We know that children will have a happier life once they can use words to get their messages across! You can use the following tips in any language that you speak. Your child will benefit from any language that they are exposed to, the key is to use language around and with your children as much as possible! The more you talk, the more they will learn, they quicker they will be able to speak and make themselves understood.

See which of these simple tips you are already using or which ones you would like to give a try!

Naming objects and actions

Use your everyday life to introduce and repeat as many words as you can. You can comment on things that you are doing, like 'I will get your shoes for you. Look: shoes!' Or you can simply point to and name everything that you have in your shopping trolley... 'Today, we are buying bananas for snack time, look, yellow bananas! And these are potatoes, can you see the oranges?' In the playground, you can introduce and repeat action words, like 'wow, you are running!' or 'we can kick this ball, do you want to kick it? Wow, you can kick it! Again?'

Simply naming everything around your child will make you into their living dictionary. The more words you tell them, the more words they will know!

Categorize words that go together

When you play together, you can show your child some of their toys and point and say: 'doll, car, lego- lots of toys!' At meal times, for example, you can introduce your child to the category "food" by telling them everything on their plate is called 'food'. When getting dressed, you can say: 'we are putting on your trousers, socks and jumper- all these are clothes'.

These are more abstract words and your child will benefit from having them explained by you through object referencing.

Make sounds

Introduce making lots of sounds into your day. Copying sounds is easier than copying words and your child will enjoy doing this. You can use sounds like 'uh-oh' to describe a mis-adventure or 'wow' to express how happy you are with your child. You can introduce lots of animal noises when playing with cuddly toys, such as 'miaow' or 'wuff' or 'roar'.

These sounds will practice the muscles that help your child develop their speech and language,

Look at Books

Young children want to do everything that they see adults or older siblings do. It is simple: if you look at books, they will want to look at books! If you look at phones, they will want to look at phones! So, pick up a book or a magazine and show your child that you enjoy reading!

Books are important for your child because with books, your child can self-direct their learning. To slow down their learning to exactly how they need it. They can skip a page if they are not interested or go back a page and suddenly find something that they are very interested in. This means that they will have the time they need to revise and practice new vocabulary. The more they love books, the more they can learn new words! When you look at a book together, feel free to add to the book! For example by asking 'Where is the...?' and then answering 'There is the...!' like 'Where is the teddy? There is the Teddy!'

Sing Nursery rhymes and songs

Young children love repetition in songs! You can learn nursery rhymes and songs together from the internet on sites like artburst action songs (see online links) or of course with us in our Zoom sessions. Try to learn all the actions to the songs as well and do them together at a slower pace than internet led songs, this will help your children to learn the songs and actions better. You could start singing a song and let your child fill in the gaps, such as 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and....". You might be surprised how much they know already!

Play adult led games

You can make some time to play one of the games that our Speech and Language Support Team suggested:

Intensive Interaction

The Intensive Interaction approach involves interacting with children with communication needs by imitating their behaviour, responding to them in a very highly responsive way, and mirroring what they do as a basis to communication and interaction.

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