Activities to stimulate toddlers’ language development

Published: 27 Nov 2020 Tagged: activitieschildrenlanguagelanguage developmentlanguage skillsparentsSpeakablespeech and language pathologyspeech language pathologistspeech pathologistSpeech Pathologyspeech therapystimulationtipstoddlers

When children are in their toddler ages, an immeasurable number of events can happen on a single day which will affect their development in a significant way. As toddlers, they can learn very fast when they have the appropriate stimuli from parents, family members and other carers. We have listed some very simple but useful activities to be performed every day to stimulate a toddler’s language skills:

• Reading Time. Even if the child has no literacy skills and is learning how to handle a book, using a time every day to read for the child will always generate the assimilation of new vocabulary and stimulate the imagination. It could be a simple picture book in the beginning, evolving to simple storybooks and then to more complex ones throughout the years.
• Sharing Short Stories. Children have an extremely wealthy imagination, so it should be stimulated by making the child imagine a story being told or allowing the child to create a story from zero.
• Imitation. Sometimes, a toddler might express satisfaction through clapping hands, voicing a sound etc. When you imitate that ‘victory gesture’, you demonstrate that you recognise that accomplishment, making the child even prouder. Also, the child will feel more confident and will likely imitate your own gestures and speech, which will stimulate language skills.
• Speaking in Turns and Intelligently. A child needs to be treated with as much equality as possible. It means that you should not interrupt children when they’re talking and talk as the adult that you are, with no changed voices or ‘replacing the child’ as if the child’s speech came out from your mouth.
• Label Things. Even if children have no literacy skills yet, they can recognise and memorise shapes and sequences. This is why so many children can type their names on a keyboard not even knowing how to read each letter separately. By labelling objects and places at home, you can stimulate children recognise such ‘name shapes’, then you can use explore then letting the child point to labels and words on other places (books, TV, street signs) while hearing or already speaking such words.
• Acknowledge Accomplishments. A child is still learning and many times there is no proper way to understand when something was done properly. Actually, you are the one to make this clear, celebrating good deeds and accomplishments. You can say ‘good job!’, ‘well done!’ or anything alike, as well as smiling, clapping hands or doing anything else that prove that you recognise the child’s accomplishment.
• Music to Hear, Sing and Dance. Music is a powerful tool to stimulate children’s language and communication skills. Kinaesthetic skills can be also stimulated when you sing and dance. The more the child listens to music adequate to this developmental stage, the more the child will be able to build complex sentences, expand vocabulary and feel confident to communicate and socially interact.

The activities above are just a small number of possibilities to stimulate children’s language skills. You probably have so many more strategies to share, let us know your experience! And if you want to learn new strategies and need some support to help your child with developmental challenges from any age, please visit our Parental Coaching page to know how we can help you!