Target specific language and literacy goals for your child with the tips and FREE educational downloads available below. This article provides you with five ways to help your child’s language and literacy development.
Parents play a critical role in a child’s language development. Spending time playing and communicating with your child are effective ways to help increase your child’s vocabulary and language development.
Here are five ways to help your child’s language and literacy development that are fun:
| 1. Articulation Cards. Work on articulation with Apraxia Speech Cards for Speech Therapy. These cards help focus on the phonological processes of putting together sounds to form simple words. They’re perfect for children who struggle with multiple speech errors and help your child to articulate, form sounds, and learn to speak clearly.
Focusing on articulation helps children’s to speak clearly and be easily understood by others. When they can express their basic needs and wants and engage in conversation their confidence rises. |
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| 2. Read, read, read. Introduce new vocabulary by reading aloud daily to your child. Choose age-appropriate books with simple sentences and run your finger under the words as you read. “Point out specific features of text (e.g., “That is the letter S like the sound at the beginning of Sam’s name”). Read the same book multiple times and engage your child in saying the words aloud. Name and describe the objects and characters on each page. Our CVC Short A Sentences activity is a great place to start. |  |
| 3. Rhyme Time Fun. Include books with rhyming text and nursery rhymes. Not only are rhymes great fun for young children, but they are also the building blocks that lay the foundation for reading readiness and the skills that are crucial to the development of literacy. Rhyming helps children learn to hear that words are made up of smaller parts — a necessary skill when later trying to sound out words to read. Rhyming Clip Cards – CVC Words and more! is a fun rhyming activity you can download, read, and play with your child again and again. You can’t go wrong with hands-on learning and using clothespins! |  |
| 4. Down on the Farm. Choose books that focus on animals and animal sounds. Animal sounds are one of the easiest and most effective ways to work on developing early language skills – and they’re so much fun! What Do You See? is a rhyming reader you can download, color and read with your child to support these skills. There are just two pages to print, fold and staple together to create an 8-page reader that you can read with your child over and over. |  |
| 5. Phonological awareness. Use sounds in play to help your child learn to distinguish small units of sound in words (phonological awareness). For example, blow bubbles and make the “b” sound – “buh, buh, bubbles.” Talk about sounds in the text, (e.g., The car goes v-v-v-v-vroom! The pig says, “oink”). You can download Let’s Practice Isolation Sounds to work on beginning sounds/phonemes with your child. Print in black and white or in color. |  |
Check out our: Five More Ways to Help Your Child’s Language and Literacy Development Article!
