As children develop, they learn language from observing and interacting with others and their environment. Beginning in early childhood, we learn words and their meanings, grammar rules, sentence structure, conversation skills, and so much more. Most children develop these oral language skills implicitly from natural exposure, however some of our brain's have more difficulty learning these skills. Children and adults with language disorders need to be explicitly taught many of the skills using specialized methods. Since our ability to understand and use language are intertwined, most people impacted by language disorders experience both receptive language (input) and expressive language (output) difficulties. Difficulty sharing sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings can be frustrating in school, home and social settings. Since spoken language serves as the foundation for written language, students with language disorders often struggle with literacy skills including reading, writing and spelling.
READ! Reading books with your child is one of the best ways to support their language development. Choose books of interest (both fiction and non-fiction) and pause along the way to ask wh- questions (e.g. "What do you think the book is going to be about?"), talk about the pictures, and make "I wonder" statements that get them thinking (e.g. "Hmm...I wonder why the character did that?" or "I wonder what will happen next."). Discuss new vocabulary, figures of speech and complex word forms as you come across them. Take turns retelling the story, you can even be silly and change parts or make up a new ending. No one wants to feel tested, so keep it light and assist them by modeling and expanding their answers.
ASK QUESTIONS! Engage in conversation by asking open-ended questions that lend themselves to more than a "yes" or a "no". This provides opportunities for longer sentences, varied vocabulary, and conversation skills. Use pictures in books, visuals and context to help your child understand the questions.
CATEGORIZE! Play categorization/sorting games with your child. For example, name as many animals, sports, colors, etc., as you can. Categorization skills are foundational for vocabulary development and helps with word finding. Talk about words that are opposites (hot - cold), synonyms (big - large), and words that have more than one meaning (feet as a body part - feet as in measurement). Discuss what features make two items the same and different (ice cream cone and popsicle).
MODEL CORRECT LANGUAGE! If your child uses incorrect grammar structures, "I ranned home," model the correct grammar by saying, "Oh, you ran home!" If your child uses non-specific words during stories or explanations, (for example, "We went there and got the stuff for the thing,") model for them how to be more specific. Example: "Your class went to the library to get books for the read-a-thon," now you tell me again.
SEQUENCE! Using connecting words such as, first, second, third, and then, next, last practice sequencing with your child by talking about your day, future plans, talking about a book or real-life tasks such as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Have fun with it - you can draw pictures or cut out pictures to help them remember the steps. Follow recipes or steps to a craft project to improve sequencing and language comprehension skills. Having your child teach a parent or sibling a recipe, rules to a game or steps to a craft project can aid in expressive language skills and sequencing.
PLAY BOARD GAMES! Board games such as "Outburst Junior", "Apples to Apples Jr", "Tri-Bond", "Scattergories", and "Twenty-Five Words or Less", help increase vocabulary, understanding of categories and word retrieval skills. Games such as "Guess Who" and "20 Questions" aid in verbal reasoning and provide practice in asking appropriate questions. "Barrier games", where two people are seated across from each other with some type of visual barrier between them, facilitate use of precise and clear expressive language skills as well as language comprehension skills.
PREDICT! Make predictions about a story or chapter of a book you read to or with your child. Discuss what you think will happen next and then discuss whether your predictions were right. After reading a story or chapter of a book to or with your child, talk about the key parts of the story. Who are the main characters? Where and when does the story take place? What problems do the characters have to overcome? What do they plan to do? How do they finally solve the problem?
EXPLORE CONTENT! Discuss the news or other topics of interest. So much of our communication abilities is dependent on our background knowledge. Practice summarizing by identifying what the passage was mostly about.
PROBLEM SOLVE! Use verbal problem-solving skills to discuss situations that arise in books or (may) come up in your child's life. What would they say or do? Why? How would the situation turn out?
WEBSITES/ACTIVITIES:
Videos
Where is it? (Prepositions)
How It's Made (Sequencing for older students)
Read aloud books/Content
Online Games
Language Games (Room Recess) fact or opinion, drawing conclusions, context clues, and syllables.
Graphic Organizers (Online)
1. Web Diagram
4. Venn Diagram
5. KWL Chart
I have many resources that can't legally be shared on this public site. Contact me if you would like more materials for your child's specific goals, and I will email them directly to you.