Stimulating Language Development "Twenty Tips To Caregivers" Dr. Alice Sterling Honig, Professor Emerita of Child Development at Syracuse University

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TIPS - Table of Contents

Recent brain research reinforces what child development specialists have long observed:  

An adult's vocabulary is largely determined by the speech that is heard within the first three years of life.  The brain responds not only to sounds, but also to rhythms and patterns which establish a sense of grammatical structure and syntax.  As sounds of words are heard, the brain's neural connections are stimulated and the brain grows in such a way that the child can retrieve and repeat those sounds.  When a child's environment is enriched with conversation, stories,  songs and rhymes, language mastery soars.  The following article is reprinted with permission of the author, to be used for training and technical assistance.

Tie Words To Actions

• Self talk - Describe your own actions as you do them.  This gives you the opportunity to introduce new words.  "I am relaxing my shoulder."  "I am mixing color into the play dough."
• Parallel talk - Describe the children's actions as they do them.  "You're squeezing the dough so hard."  "You're lining up the long blocks."

Help Children Communicate Without Oral Language

• Use pantomime games - act out stories or situations without words.  Act out meanings of words.
• Use Charade games - "Pretend you're carrying the biggest log you ever saw."  "Pretend you're pouring a glass of milk."  "Pretend you are hopping like a bunny".

Make Language Clear

• Be very specific.  "Put these red blocks with the other red blocks."
• Look directly at the child when you are talking to him/her; watch his eyes and you will know if he/she is following you or is confused.
• Be aware of noise level in the room.  A high level of noise is detrimental to language development.

Help Children Think In Sequences

• Children need to learn that we often do things in certain order.  "We do this first, then that".
• Timing and sequence are important parts of life.  "What happens if we put our shoes on before our socks?"
• Give children things to do in order.  "Joan, please pick up the yellow pencil; put it on my desk; walk around the room two times; then close the door."
• Sequencing is important in language and reading skills.

Meet The Match Developmentally

• With youngest children use simple words and phrases for things and actions and increase complexity as the child's language grows.
• Know where the child is developmentally and move forward as he does.
• Stretch, expand language, but don't overwhelm.

Teach Time And Space Words

• Use objects found in the child care program (blocks, dolls, etc.) to talk about space relationships - in front of, behind, over, under, front, back, etc.
• Use objects to talk about comparisons:  which is bigger, fattest, tallest, etc.  Which comes first, second, last.
• Use time and space words like nearer, soon, and after.
• Stimulate comparison, judgements, evaluations.

Use Open-Ended Questions

• "What could happen if ...?"  "Tell me all about this?"  "What would you see if you were a birdie flying over the school?"  "What do we need to bake cookies?"  "How could you get the chalk marks off the blackboard?"  "Can you tell me how you made your sand castle?"

 Activate Children's Listening Skills

• Play games where you make "Mistakes" for the children to catch you on.  "Simple Simon met a pie man going home to bed!"
• Children love silly things and looking for your mistake makes them listen carefully.  "When we wash our clothes do we hang up our watch or our wash?"
• Give different instructions than usual and see if the children catch the difference.  
• Use past and present and future tenses of verbs.

Keep Talk And Attitudes Toward Language Positive

• Use praise and encouraging words, but be specific.
• Keep verbal promises.  This helps children learn that adult language can be depended upon.
• Accept language deformations - don't correct; just model correct usage.

Describe And Label

• Have the children describe and label.
  * Have them taste honey, then put lemon on the honey and have the children describe the difference.
  * Pour water into paint powder and have them describe.
• Have children make connections between real objects.
• Use food experiences.
  * Then have the children describe how their mama fixes
  certain foods.
  * Food times are wonderful times for stimulating language.

Help Children Begin To See The Relationship Between Written And Oral Language

• Help children sign their work - with a letter of their name if able.
• Children need to begin to see the relationship between squiggles on paper and spoken words.

Help Children Make Up Stories

• Ask children to tell you a story about a picture or about things.  For example, have a bag with all kids of keys and let the kids choose a key and tell a story about it.
• Show a picture of a baby and then have children tell how they grew from being a baby to now.

Have Children Retell Stories To Other Children

• This is fun and it is amazing how that story can change as it is retold.  Be sure you tell and read lots of stories to children!

Have Children Discuss Feelings

• "What happens when you are scared?"  "What makes you scared?" (angry, etc.)
• Read stories about animals or child characters and discuss situations where they express emotions.

Help Children Reason - To Learn Cause And Effect

• Encourage children to tell you why they do things in a certain way.
• Have them talk about why this happens when we do that.  "How did the little bear know that someone had been sitting in his chair?"  Because it was all broke down - something big musta sat in it."  "If we finish cleaning up quickly then we can go out to play."

Help Children Learn Positive Social Skills

• Teach the magic words of "Please" and "Thank you".
• Use these words yourself.
• Help children to understand the feelings that they feel when someone is rude or kind to them.
• Model courteous ways of talking with children.
• Use empathic comforting talk to communicate your understanding of children's feelings and to model pro-social interactions for them.

Use Incongruity - Make Obvious Mistakes

• Make "silly" mistakes that are obvious.  Ask, "Is this my (point to knee) nose?"  "Do I have two mouths?"  "Do airplanes fly under the water?"
• Kids love silly "mistakes" adults make.

Read to Children - In Groups and Individually

• Read something every day.
• Have children make up stories that you write down and read back to them.
• For infants, make up stories to pictures (a ball, a shoe, milk, a baby, a dog, a grandmother).
• Create a comfortable book corner.

Use Music, Chants And Rhythms

• Make up songs - sing some songs over and over.
• Rhyme words.
• Use chants to signal transition times.
• Sing rhythmically and have babies bounce their bodies to music.
• Choose songs with many verses such as "Hush little baby, don't say word".

Listen to Children

• Encourage children to communicate verbally by being attentive to their communication attempts.
• Keep kids thinking (and talking) - to you and to each other.
• Remember language is learning and can be fun.

 

Abstracted from:  Honig, A.S. (1989) Talk, read, joke, make friends: Language powers for children. Day Care and Early Education, 16(4), 14-17

WCCIP • 2109 S. Stoughton Road, Madison WI 53716 • Ph 800.366.3556 • Fx 608.224.6178
These tip sheets developed by WCCIP, March 1998 with funding from the WI Dept. of WFD, Office of Child Care, and DHFS