Expressive Language

Expressive Language

• Making Language Fun

  By using your voice.

  Use your voice to make words sound fun by varying the pitch you use and by making your voice go up and down.

  For example, play a game making a car, teddy, plane or man go up and down. Say ‘up’ in a high pitch and ‘down’ in a low pitch. Hide and seek games using toys are a good way of making language fun and interesting. Nursery rhymes and finger rhymes are all good for language games, e.g. ‘Round and round the garden’.

• Lots of Repetition

  How children learn language.
  
  

  Children learn language from hearing it spoken to them. If you use words over and over again in simple sentences and in different sentences, but in a natural way, you will help your child understand and recognise words. This gives them the necessary foundation on which to begin building their own language.

  For example when your child has a drink you may say, “You want a drink?”,  “Here’s your drink”,  “Where’s your drink?”,  “The drink’s all gone”.

  You could also play a game using the word drink as a theme in the game. “Teddy wants a drink”; “dolly wants a drink”, “give teddy a drink”, “the drink’s gone” etc.

• Try to be consistent

  Use the same words each time.
  
  

  It helps a child to learn the names of things if they are called the same thing each time. For example: the last meal of the day can be called dinner, tea or supper. Pick the name you prefer and stick to it. A top could be a sweater, jumper or sweatshirt. Later your child can learn different names when they can recognise the difference between similar items.

• Encouraging Naming

  Some ideas to encourage naming.
  

  • When doing an inset puzzle with your child keep the pieces near to you and encourage your child to ask for the pieces. Put out three pieces for them to see, name them and then encourage your child to tell you which one they would like.
  • Put several objects into a bag and then encourage your child to look into the bag to see what he can find. Children love these simple surprise games and can often be encouraged to name the things they find.
  • Hide some objects or pictures of objects around the room. As your child finds them encourage them to name them.
  • Look through a catalogue with your child. Cut out the pictures they name or show they are interested in. Stick them on paper to make a picture and then encourage them to tell another person about the picture they are making.
  • Play a fishing game using a large empty container or a washing up bowl as the fish pond. Make some fish out of cardboard and attach paper-clips to them. Make a fishing rod with a magnet attached to it to attract the fish. Stick some pictures of different objects onto the fish. Encourage your child to catch the fish. If he correctly names the picture on the fish he can then keep the fish.

  
  

• Provide a Good Example

  By repeating the child's utterance.
  
  

  You repeat the child’s utterance giving the correct adult form of grammar, e.g. child says, “mummy go”; you repeat, “yes, mummy’s gone home”. Or child says “no mummy come”; you repeat “no, mummy hasn’t come yet”. Or the child says, “Boy up ladder for get cat”; you repeat, “Yes, the boy’s climbed up the ladder to get the cat down”.

• Reinforcement and Praise

  Praise your child for trying.
  
  

  Listen to your child so that when he does try to speak or say a word you can praise him. It does not matter if you don’t understand him completely or if his words are not pronounced ‘properly’. If you think he may have tried to say something, say for example, “yes, it’s a car”.

  
  

  By praising your child for his attempts at speech he will want to try again and gradually his language will increase and his speech sounds will improve too.

• Giving a little more information

  Help extend your child's language a little.
  
  

  If your child says “bus” then you could say, “Yes, it’s a big red bus”. Or if the child says “I fall down” and point to his knee you could say “Oh dear, you’ve fallen down and hurt your knee”.

  
  

  Try to keep your sentence simple and just one step ahead of the child’s own level. Children learn more from conversation containing information about what is happening e.g. ”give the book to daddy to read” than they do from constantly being told what to do, e.g. “come on”, “put it down there”, “Stop doing that”.

  
  

• Questions V Comments

  Children will generally talk more if someone talks to them using comments more than questions.

  
  It is better to say to your child, “there’s a car”, “there’s the bus” rather than “What’s that?” The occasional “what’s that?” is okay as long as there are plenty of comments and as long as you tell the child the answer to your question, if, after a pause they say nothing.

• Choices

  Offer choices
  
  

  Offer choices with food, toys, sweets, drink, clothes, videos, book/comics etc. Always name the choices on offer, e.g. “Would you like orange or milk?” This should avoid simple yes/no answers that do not always reflect that the child has understood the question and do not encourage spoken language.

• Use of Gesture

  Many children use gestures at first before they use words.
  
  

  Encourage speech to develop alongside the gestures by repeating the appropriate word to your child when they are using a ‘gesture’. If your child tells you their needs by pointing to things or fetching things, again, repeat the appropriate words to them when this happens. This will encourage them to copy.

• Encouraging use of Verbs (action words)

  Fun games for action words.
  

  • Play a “Bossing teddy or dolly” game. You tell the teddy what to do and help your child make the teddy move. Then ask your child to tell teddy to ‘dance’, ‘walk’, ‘run’, ‘wave’ etc. As your child gets used to this you can then encourage your child to tell teddy what to do without any help from yourself.
  • Make a game of encouraging your child to follow your instructions of ‘sit down’, ‘jump’ etc. Then swap over so that your child can tell you what to do.
  • Look through magazines and picture books and cut out or point out pictures of people doing different things. Encourage your child to tell you what they are doing.
  • Encourage your child to help you with some of the household jobs. Give ham a choice of what he can do to help: “Would you like to do the brushing or dusting?” Accompany each word with an appropriate gesture. Encourage him to tell you which he would like to do. You can do this with other activities. Ask your child if he would like to do cooking or painting for example.

• 'Gone', 'All Gone', and 'Bye, Bye'

  Some useful words for your child to learn.
  

  • Wave and say “bye bye” when a person leaves or a toy goes out of sight. Encourage your child to join in and when the person has gone say “Gone”.
  • Play a tidying up game with your child. Put the toys away, naming them as you do so and then when they are all in the toy box say “All gone”. You can play a similar game making objects disappear, one at a time, under a box. Name each object as it disappears and when they are all under the box say “All gone”. Then make the objects reappear, one at a time, naming them as you find them.
  • Make a picture book with clear colourful pictures cut out of magazines. Make every other page blank and as the child turns to a blank page say “oh gone”. Name the objects as you turn to a picture page.
  • Blow bubbles and as your child bursts each one encourage him to say “gone”.

• Encourage the use of "more"

  A useful word for any child.
  

  • If your child shows that he would like more of something, e.g. he finishes his orange juice and holds out his mug, say “More?” with exaggerated intonation and pour some out. Gradually encourage them to say the word.
  • Give your child a simple lift-out puzzle to do and pass him just one piece at a time. Encourage him to say “More” for the next piece. If your child doesn’t say it then say it for them each time. They may copy after a few times of playing this game.
  • Blow some bubbles. When they have all burst, say “More” and blow some more. Encourage your child to ask for “more”.
  • Any activity that your child enjoys can be used to elicit  “More”. E.g. rough and tumble games, being tickled and chased, being pushed on a swing or roundabout, singing a song etc.

• Encourage your child to say 'Go'

  A good game to develop listening.
  
  

  Play repetitive games in which you and your child can take turns to say “go” to start the game. For example, knocking down a tower of bricks, throwing a ball at some skittles etc.

  
  

  Say 'Ready, Steady,.........Go'

• Encourage the use of 'Up' and 'Down'

  Learning to say 'up' and 'down'.

  • Physical games can be used to encourage these words. Help your child to climb up and down the stairs, and the ladders of climbing frames while you comment on their movements “up” and “down”. Encourage your child to say when he is going “up” or “down”. 
  • When you are at the park comment on your child going “up” and “down” on the see-saw, swings and climbing frame. Encourage your child to say “up” and “down”

• Favourite Pictures

  Make a 'scrap book'
  
  

  Collect large brightly coloured pictures – things your child knows well. Get her to help you stick them in the book. Say the words and get her to point to the ones you say. For the words she knows well, get her to say them and you point. Involve other members of the family in the game.

• Favourite Nursing Rhymes

  Have fun with nursery rhymes
  
  

  Enjoy nursery rhymes and action songs such as ‘wheels on the bus’. Make up your own words. For example, ‘the animals on the bus’ goes down well. Turn routines into songs – ‘Here we go up the stairs, one two three, up the stairs.’

• Putting words together

  Combining words to form phrases.
  
  

  • Your child will need to have developed a reasonable vocabulary before they start to combine words together.
  • You can help your child to start using 2 words together by modelling what he might say. When talking to your child stress the 2 most important words in the sentence that they may then copy. If your child speaks to you using only one word when he could have used two, expand on what he said. For example, if you ask, “What’s that noise?” and they reply “dog”, say to them “Yes, the dog is barking”.
  • Put out a selection of objects, some of which must be containers, e.g. car, ball, box, teddy, jar etc. Then say, for example, “Put the car in the box”, or “Give the ball to the teddy” Start with using just a few objects and the number can then gradually be built up.

  Then ask the question, e.g.”Where is the car?” Your child might reply “box”. If so say “Yes, the car is in the box”. This will again expand your child’s own use of language and give them a good model to copy.

  • Play with one of your child’s favourite toys. If it is a car for instance, make the car do things like: -

  “Car go”, “car crash”, “car stop”.

   

  If it is a doll make the doll do things:-     

  “Dolly jump”, “dolly sleep”, “dolly eat”.
  Use adjectives as a second word in the same way.
  “Good dolly”, “fast car”

  • Take an action like jumping, running, sitting, clapping and get everyone in the family to do it too.

  “Daddy jump”, “Mummy jump”, “Teddy jump”.

  • Fill a bag or box with things your child will be familiar with. Take them out one by one saying: -

  “Hello cup”, “hello teddy”, “hello spoon” etc.
  
  

  When you have finished talking about and playing with the things put them back saying “Bye bye car”, “bye bye ball”, “bye bye brush”, and waving to each one as it disappears.

  • Start with objects, collect two of each thing and then help your chld to sort them into pairs saying “two shoes”, “two cups”, and “two spoons”. Once your child can match objects quite well go onto pictures and put them in pairs in the same way.
  • Play a shopping game with your child. Set out pictures or pretend foods in a pretend shop. Let your child be the shopkeeper. You can then buy things from their shop. Show your child the box and a bag, which you have brought with you to put the things that you are going to buy. Tell your child what you would like to buy and whether you want them to put it in your bag or box. E.g. “Can you put some bananas in my box? “Can you put some apples in my bag? Try not to point to either the food you want or the container you want them to put it in.

  Swap over and reverse the roles so that you child buys things from your shop. Encourage your child to tell you what they want to buy and where he wants you to put it (bag or box).

  • When your child is familiar with the names of body parts and clothing you can play the following game with them.

  Use a fully clothed doll and teddy. Ask your child to undress the toys in the order you say. E.g. “Take off teddy’s socks”. “Take off dolly’s skirt”. When the toys are undressed get your child to wash them in the order that you say. E.g. “Wash dolly’s feet”, “ Wash teddy’s ears”. You can then tell your child the order in which to put the clothes back on the doll and teddy.
  
  

  Then swap roles so that your child tells you which clothes to take off, which body parts to wash etc.

  • Play a packing up game with your child. Cut out from a magazine or draw a picture of a man and some different items of clothing. Put out some items into which the clothes can be packed. E.g. bag, box, suitcase etc. Tell your child which clothes they must pack into which container, e.g. “Put the man’s trousers into the box”, “put the man’s shoes into the bag”. When all the clothes are packed, reverse the roles so that your child can then tell you what to do.

• Sentence Closure

  Start off a sentence and encourage your child to finish it.
  
  

  For example. “Katie, you want a…….”  whilst holding a drink for the child.

  
  

  To begin with, your child may not finish the sentence and you may need to complete it for them after a pause.

  
  

  In time, your child will get to know what is expected and will fill in the gap.

  
  

  This technique can also be used to talk about what your child is doing. For example, when playing with the trains you could say something like “Jamie's playing with the (pause)….. train” The train goes …. Choo choo”

• Books

  Using books to help language development.
  
  

  Choose books with simple pictures.

  
  

  If it’s a story, tell the simple outline of the story first with a word or two about each picture.

  
  

  Use the same stories over and over again so they become familiar. Let your child  choose a favourite book - be prepared to read the favourites over and over again!  Let him join in and fill in some of the key words of the story.

  
  

  ‘Flap’ books are very helpful – your child can open the flaps as you comment and tell the story.