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10 Top Tips to Develop Expressive Language Skills

10 Top Tips to Develop Expressive Language Skills

Expressive language involves using gestures, sounds & words to convey meaning to other people. It involves naming objects, describing actions & events, using grammar correctly and asking & answering questions.

  1. Encourage performance sounds during play – When playing use action words and sounds in a meaningful way e.g. ‘brmm brmm’ as you push the car. Accompany these with varied intonations and gestures.

  2. Comment on what your child is doing during play e.g. “ your digging a deep hole”

  3. Leave silences in play this enables your child to initiate a ‘communication’.

  4. Keep your sentences short use 1 and 2 word utterances initially, as your child is more likely to attempt to copy 1 word as opposed to a long sentence of 6 words.

  5. Add on to your child’s productions if your child consistently says a production which you know means ‘drink’, add another word in your response to show your child what they could have said e.g. ‘yummy drink, more drink, big drink’.

  6. Offer your child choices when you are not sure what they want (with or without object prompts). eg. if your child wants a toy – you can say ‘car or ball’.

  7. Expect your child to provide you with an attempt at a word or sound. Encourage your child to give a response and not just take you to the desired object. You may encourage this by verbally asking your child to tell you what they want, by not responding to gestures, getting the wrong object, or giving your child a choice. Ensure you reinforce speech production specifically e.g. ‘great telling Mummy you wanted a ball’.

  8. Read to your child everyday labelling pictures in the book, this increases vocabulary skills.

  9. Engage in pretend play with your child using props eg toy telephones, toy kitchen, shops, puppets etc. Research has shown that dramatic play activities create the most complex language interactions.

  10. Model a range of different word types
    • naming words e.g. car, bottle
    • location words e.g. in, on
    • action words e.g. run, jump
    • describing words e.g. big, little

This enables your child to construct word combinations and form sentences more easily. It is beneficial to model words when your child is attending to the objects or playing with them. Praise all attempts at communication and most importantly, have fun!

5 School Readiness Apps to Help Your Child Prepare for School

5 School Readiness Apps to Help Your Child Prepare for School

1. Injini

This App teaches cognitive, language and fine motor skills through the use of rhyming and sequencing games, syllable identification and following directions

2. Teach Your Monster to Read

This is a fun interactive, engaging game that practices essential reading skills such as matching letters to sounds, blending and segmenting letters and more. Play this game on your computer and it’s free.

3. Rhyming Bus

A great app to develop rhyming skills in young children and engage early readers.

4. Pronouns with Slingo

A great app that allows a child to practice their use of pronouns in a fun interactive game.

5. Sequencing

A great app to develop sequencing and storytelling/narrative skills in young       children.

Struggling to Read

Struggling to Read

Developing letter/sound knowledge is crucial in the early years for later reading and spelling skills.

In order for children to learn to read and spell they need to be able to understand:

  • that letters represent sounds
  • that words are made up of sounds
  • writing in a particular order can make different meanings

Research has shown that getting help for literacy problems early can prevent those problems becoming more severe.

Speech Moves has helped many children over the Newcastle and Port Stephens regions to become competent readers through delivering evidence-based multi-sensory programs. At Speech Moves, we provide strategies to help your child succeed.

Contact us if your child needs help to increase their reading fluency.

Struggle to follow directions?

Struggle to follow directions?

Receptive language is the ability to listen, follow instructions and understand what’s being said. It involves understanding words and sentences and having the ability to pay attention and concentrate on specific tasks.

Delays in receptive language can lead to ongoing difficulties at school with academic success or behaviour.

Speech Moves use the latest up to date assessments to identify delays in receptive language skills. Intervention involves evidence based hands-on learning, that is tailored to your individual child.

Contact us if you are unsure about any aspect of your child’s communication skills.

Mixes up speech sounds?

Mixes up speech sounds?

Most children follow a typical pattern of speech sound development and all children make errors as their sound system develops. Learning to pronounce all speech sounds correctly is a critical part of a child’s development and progress made in the preschool and early years is crucial to mastering the rules for reading and spelling.

Research has shown a clear link between speech sound disorders and slower literacy development at school.

Does your child substitute one sound for another or leave off the first to last sound in a word? Speech Moves can help with evidence based programs and strategies to develop your child’s speech sound knowledge and production.

Contact us if you’d like to discuss any aspect of your child’s speech sound development