There are so many aspects of play that naturally build language and social skills. And by adjusting your play just slightly, you can make a huge difference to your child's language development. A few of the easiest (and most powerful) strategies are listed below:
Following your child's lead
Following your child's lead makes all the difference. You can have thought up the best game, with the best toys, with the absolute best learning outcomes, but if your child is not interested, all that effort will be for nothing. It is so much easier to watch your child and see what they are interested in. Follow their lead! If they are interested in playing with the box the toy came in, play with the box together! Boxes have unlimited language learning potential - you can talk about actions (open, close, up, down), positions (in, on, out, under), and adjectives (full, empty, ripped, smooth, rough). Not to mention all the social language (oh no!, my turn).
If your child is in the sandpit and they are watching the sand fall through their fingers...copy them! Don't worry about teaching them to dig or to build sandcastles. Follow their lead. Notice what's important. Children (like adults) find it easier to learn when something is interesting to them. This leads on to my second strategy:
Copying/joining in play
Copying or imitation is an important skill in learning as well as communication, but we can't ask children to copy us unless we have already shown them what copying looks like. The easiest way to do this is to copy them. Watch what they are doing and imitate. Not only does this build their attention, it is extremely validating for children. Everybody wants to be seen.
Commenting
Commenting follows on from our first strategy. Once you've noticed what your child is interested in, you can start to add language. Commenting is a strategy for “feeding in” language to children. With this technique there is no pressure on children to say something or copy you. You are simply giving them great language models.
When commenting, you can:
Talk about what you and your child are doing.
Speak to your child at their language level, or just above it. For example, if your child is using single words, speak to them in one or two word statements.
Use short, simple, repetitive sentences. For example: “we’re building, building a house”.
There are a number of different types of comments that you can make - people often think of nouns (naming words), but there are so many more opportunities for building language. In our Hanen 'It Takes Two to Talk' training, we use something called a language wheel to support our understanding of the types of language we can use to comment.
This language wheel is such a useful for strategy for varying the kinds of words we use when commenting. The more variety we use, the larger our child's receptive and expressive repertoire will be.
Expansion
Once your child is using single words or short sentences, the next strategy is expansion -building on what your child is saying about the things that they are interested in. We do this by generally adding one more element/idea to what your child says.
e.g.: Child: “dog”
adult: “a big dog”
child: “doggy run”
adult: “he’s running to a catch a ball”
This strategy is the same as commenting - your child is not required to repeat what you've said. Each time you use this strategy you are validating what your child has said and exposed them to a deeper model of language.
These are just some of the strategies that you can use to build language through play. While simple, they are extremely powerful. Best of all, they are portable! Strategies like these can be added to play at any time, no special toys required. They can also be used as part of your every day routines - bath time, reading, dinner time. The possibilities are endless. One of my favourite parts of my job is helping people find ways to incorporate language building strategies into their every day routines. For more information or for help in deciding which strategies are helpful for you, please feel free to contact me or make an appointment.