Ways to Help Childrens’ Speech and Language Skills
Top Tips to Support Childrens’ Speech and Language Skills
Ensure that your child is looking and listening to what you are saying. If needed, wait for them to finish their activity and look up towards you before you begin to speak.
Use gestures and actions alongside your speech to keep your child’s attention and help them to understand what you are saying.
Talk about things that are happening in the ‘here and now’. Comment on what your child is doing so that your child can match the words to the objects e.g. “Jack is sitting on the chair. Jack is putting his shoes on. Jack has got his coat.”
Repeat back and add a word on to what your child says to help them put more words together e.g.
Tess = “there’s a car”
Adult = “yes, there’s a FAST car”
Give your child lots of opportunities to hear clear models of speech to support them to develop clear words e.g.
Ted = “wat the tar”
Adult = “yes,WASH the CAR”
Give your child lots of time to think about and say their spoken utterances. Try not to make your child feel rushed to get their words out or they will put extra pressure on their language system which might overload it.