Let's Talk About Talking
Speech and language are crucial areas of development for children. They play a vital role throughout our lives, helping us to understand what is going on around us, communicate, develop relationships, solve problems, think and learn, and more. They also support many other aspects of development, including cognitive, social, and literacy development. The month of May is recognized as Better Speech and Language Month, and as a preschool that offers many services like Speech Therapy, we wanted to bring recognition to the importance of developing children’s speech and language skills.
Parents and caregivers of preschoolers can help build children’s speech and language skills during everyday activities at home or at school. Strong speech and language skills are key to kindergarten readiness and a precursor for reading, writing, and social success.
Here are some key communication skill building strategies for children ages 2–5, that highlight how adults can help their preschoolers:
Learning Songs and Rhymes
Young children love music. Singing nursery rhyme songs like Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and Wheels on the Bus teaches them about different sounds and words. Singing songs and hearing rhymes will help children learn to read. Encourage children to rhyme words on their own as they are talking.
Building Vocabulary and Describing Objects
The more words a child is exposed to, the more words they’ll know! Keep the conversation going, regardless of your activity. Some great vocabulary-building opportunities include the following:
While running errands, talk about the things you see and hear. During conversations, introduce new words and explain their meaning.
Be specific! For example, if you see a car driving by, name the type of car and point out small details. “That’s a sports car - it goes faster than the garbage truck we saw yesterday.”
Telling/Reading Stories
Set the stage for a story by naming a place, character(s), and activity. Encourage your child to create a story from those details and to make up adventures for each character. “Round-Robin” stories can be lots of fun too! Each person takes turns adding a sentence to the story. The adult can start by saying something like, “Once upon a time there was a little bear who…”. Then the child can decide what happens next by adding another sentence, and the process continues until the story ends.
You can also pick a favorite book and instead of reading the story together, take a look at the illustrations and have a conversation about what you see. You can talk about simple things like describing the scene … “the boy is wearing a blue shirt with white stripes - you have one just like it” or expand on what you see, “the puppy looks like they are smiling … why do you think they are so happy?”. Make up a story about a picture and describe what happens, or you can role-play the stories by pretending to be the characters.
Describing Emotions
Emotions give us a great opportunity to expand a child’s vocabulary and at the same time, it helps them to understand and express how they - and others might be feeling. Some ideas include the following:
At younger ages, simple emotions often include the basics: happy, sad, and mad. As children get older, help them identify the more detailed emotions that can go along with these basics. Happy = excited, joyful, calm, proud; Sad = nervous, scared, lonely; Mad = frustrated, embarrassed, annoyed.
Don’t be afraid to share your own emotions. When you are having big feelings, name them, and talk about what is causing your emotion. After having a big emotion, you can share what you did to help yourself relax afterward.
For some more tips on describing emotions, read our article on Turning Feelings into Words.
Following Directions
A big part of speaking is the ability to listen! Activities that help young children become better listeners can reinforce the skills needed for talking. Teach or reinforce ways to follow directions throughout the day.
First, be sure to have your child’s attention before you begin speaking. At first, young children do better with one-step directions, “put this toy in the basket”, and then as their abilities grow you can increase to 2-3 step directions, “put the toy in the basket, then put the basket on the shelf, and then pick a book for us to read together”. Some children will need for you to review multiple steps frequently - such as the steps you take when getting dressed, washing hands, brushing teeth, or cleaning up toys. You can even create a picture or sign with the list of steps for common daily tasks.
Some additional, easy, at-home practice opportunities include the following:
Cooking and baking: Have them follow a simple recipe, this will help them understand a sequence of first, second, and third as well as learn about numbers and measurements.
Classic games: Games like Simon Says or Red Light, Green Light will teach them to pay attention to directions and listen.
With the use of these tips, adults can help develop preschool children build and grow their speech and language abilities. We hope you can use many of these suggestions with the little ones in your life today!