Language Activities

Working with your child on language activities is a focused way to develop their communication skills. This is true whether your child has typically developing communication or if they are language delayed or have a communication disorder.

But when I work with families as a Speech & Language Therapist, typically they tell me about two kids of problems when it comes to working with their child at home...

"Something came up" We had such a busy week, we had family come to stay, the dog needed to go to the vet, we had to go to four birthday parties and a wedding this week... you get the idea! Life got in the way.

Or, they tell me

"He just wants to play" He doesn't want to work with me, he just wants to play when he comes home from daycare

These two scenarios are so common, I could easily hear them five times each day and each family tells me with such a guilty feeling that they just didn't get time to work on language activities this week.

We parents have enough guilt about a million things without adding more about speech therapy homework. The solution is to build good habits within your daily routine so that you are targeting language development all the time, while you do chores and without having to concentrate and focus on it specifically.

If you have a child who is attending Speech and Language Therapy then maybe you need to take a moment to look up what they are targeting this week but after that, you can just go back to filling your home and daily routine with language activities.

So what do I mean by this...

Well, even in your crazy, busy week with your four birthday parties, a wedding, a sick dog and a kid who just wants to play, you are still going to do the shopping right? You are still going to do laundry, make dinner, lay the table for a meal and put the dishes away?

Instead of stopping you from working on developing your child's communication skills, make these chores into the activity.

Here are some examples...

Laundry with Language

You will know from working with your child on communication development or with your therapist, the level of task that they are targeting. After that, it really is as simple as it sounds. The real key to all of these language activities is to MAKE IT FUN!

As adults, laundry is a chore but to my two year old, sorting it out is great fun! Pick up some of that enthusiasm and act like a cheer squad as you go through this activity to keep your kids interested and on task.
language activities

If you are working on developing your toddler's attention for a task and teaching them the names of items. You take the clean laundry in from the line and dump the pile in the middle of the floor.

Say to your child "I need help, I can't find the socks - can you help me?"

Then have fun as you hunt through all the clothes, cheering every time you find a sock!

Make sure you say the word each time "Yeah, I got one, I found a sock" "Oh another one, what did you find, you found a ...."

You can repeat this with different items each time and then make it harder by adding colours "We need to find the white T Shirts"

You can step this right up to a level where your teen can work on their auditory memory with you and complete their chores at the same time by following instructions like "First put the blue socks in your room, then the T Shirts and jeans on my bed". This task can be varied depending on the level of their ability.

This language activity works with any age from toddler to teen and can be used to target so many different things it is hard to describe them all!

Vocabulary Development	names of items (sock, shirt) names of storage places (drawer, closet) Materials (wool, cotton)
Concept development	Maths - pairs, sets, count items Positional language - socks in the drawer, shoes under the bed What clothes do we wear when it is cold? What items are for summer?
Auditory Memory	Following instructions in putting away items
Comprehension	Helping to sort items "Put the white items in the machine".

Other chores that work as language activities for you to try...

Kitchen clean up
Grocery shopping
Bedroom tidy
Set the table
Clean out the closet

Or switch it round and look at it the other way...

If your child is working on...	Such as...	Try...
Pronouns	He / She	Shopping for each family member Call out as you go around. "Dad wants apples - he likes apples." "Mom wants strawberries - she likes strawberries."
Prepositions	On / beside / under	Setting the table Give your child instructions such as "put the fork beside the plate" " Put the table mat under the plates"
Vocabulary	Names of household items	Tidy the house Go on a hunt for all the items that are out of place "I found a plate here in the den - where should that go?" "That's right, in the dishwasher"
Plurals	One shoe - two shoes One knife - two knives	Clear the table Have them tell you what they are doing as they go "I am putting this clean cup in the cupboard" "I am putting all the knives in the sink".

Are you starting to see how this could work? Believe me, once you get used to it you will quickly find that instead of a two minute rush to fit in homework before bed, suddenly you are working on language activities every minute that you are with your kids. It takes a bit of work to get yourself into the habit but once you are in it, it is there to stay.

One Mum told me about shopping for groceries with her child and singing "put the carrots in the cart, in the cart" to the tune of "If you are happy and you know it" brilliant! Your child is entertained while you shop and you are teaching them as you go.

These are the children who make progress with language most quickly. It is being taught as it should be, by surrounding them in a language rich environment, not by colouring in yet another worksheet and ticking the box that it is done.

I use plenty of worksheets in my practice but I want parents to use them as a cheat sheet. To work out what their child does and doesn't know about the target and to refer to as the week goes on. To truly make progress with language therapy you need to go way beyond the worksheet and lose the guilt you feel when you realise that this weeks sheet is not coloured in - AGAIN!

Finally, I have one more secret way to include language activities in a busy day with toddlers and preschoolers. While you drive with your kids in the car! One of the easiest ways with very small children is to use nursery rhyme CDs.

Your child will love the tunes and not realise that they are learning the important concept of rhythm and rhyme (important preliteracy skills). I recommend 100 sing a long songs for kids from ceadermont kids. It contains a great selection with catchy tunes and is not too fast paced for young learners to join in.

Other language development activities you might like...