Ideas for Home, Play, and Away

Building your child’s vocabulary related to everyday occurrences and special events is connected to better language development.  If your child understands and uses a variety of words, he is more likely to recognize those written words when learning to read.  Word recognition then allows your child to direct energy into the business of decoding written words (reading) instead of trying to also figure out what the words mean. 

Your early interventionist can help bring your attention to different types of words you are using with your child; for example, nouns, verbs, and adjectives.  Evaluating your child’s use of these words and tracking progress is helpful when establishing language goals and monitoring your child’s development.

A few examples of how to incorporate listening, speech, and language goals into your child’s everyday experiences are included to get you started.  More of these ideas are available in Chapter 24 Ideas For Home, Play and Away in My Turn To Learn:  An Up-To-Date Guide for Parents of Babies and Children with Hearing Loss.