Communication is an essential aspect of cognitive development in a child’s upbringing. Language development encourages learning. If a child can understand sentences and speak well, his learning and reading skills will also improve significantly. Your toddler may develop difficulties with speaking well even after attaining a certain age. If you observe this, do not panic. However, you should start engaging in fun activities for language development with the kid. It will encourage their learning skills.
Parents play important roles in encouraging the language development of their children. Most kids learn all the basics of listening, speaking, reading, and writing from birth to age 3. Children can benefit so much from their playtime. Playing games can offer a fun, relaxing, and engaging environment where they freely express themselves and come across new words. Engaging in recreational activities helps develop language, communication, and social skills while building confidence in the child.
Fun Activities for Language Development
Extensive studies and research have shown that children who are spoken with and read unto regularly in their early childhood have better literary skills and vocabulary than those who are not.
There are lots of activities that parents can engage their kids. It is a way to support and develop their vital speech and language skills.
Therefore, if your kids have difficulties speaking or learning a language, this article is made for you. We have listed below fun activities to help your child learn and improve their language and communication skills.
Word Games
These are excellent for expanding your child’s vocabulary.
A word game can be as simple as pointing out items around the house or during a road trip.
For example, you could say, “I am now peeling the orange with a knife” or “A shoe is also called footwear.”
For additional information, you could share the origin or give a simple definition of these words.
A few examples of games that can help kids develop language and communication skills include Pictionary, Scrabble, etc.
Riddles
Are you looking for fun and exciting ways to use paintings, pictures of different scenery, and words to explain situations?
Then try riddles! Riddles are fun ways to promote evaluative thinking in your toddler.
Say riddles out loud to each other, then explain the several definitions of a single word to your child.
For example, ballet as in dancing, or ballet as in a group of swans, to help them understand the riddle a lot better.
Jokes
Telling them jokes that fit into their age bracket could foster creativity and a great sense of humor in them.
It also encourages imagination and wordplay.
There are lots of child-friendly joke books that you can use to take turns in telling your child witty stories.
Try not to be too critical about their laughs, articulation, or speech.
Other than that, you can teach them proper pronunciation or word usage by repeating their statements correctly.
For instance, if your child says, “I eat it.”, you can correct them by saying, “Yes, you ate it!” without being critical.
Storytelling
Apart from just entertaining your kids or playing make-believe, storytelling is another effective option.
It can serve as a good bonding time between you and your child while helping to develop their language and communication skills.
Storytelling is an important family activity that introduces your child to new vocabulary and encourages language development.
You can make up stories together with your toddler.
Bring in characters, conflict, and a happy ending to the table.
You can also sit down together, look at photographs and talk about who or what they can see. Also, encourage your toddler to retell stories.
For a more specific schedule, set aside time every day for storytelling with your kids. You could even narrate how your day went with your child. Broaden the imagination of your child with fantastical stories. Help their creativity grow as you exchange stories about anything and everything with them.
Tongue Twisters
Have you ever heard of tongue twisters?
Well, if you haven’t, it’s your time now!
Tongue twisters are great and fun ways to teach kids correct word enunciation and pronunciation.
It is an excellent way to train their tongue to pronounce words correctly.
Just begin with easy ones and work your way up.
They will be pros in no time!
Word Chain
An easy way to strengthen a child’s language skills is by building on words and language that the child already uses.
You could cut out pieces of cardboard and write out words for different adjectives, nouns, verbs, and adverbs to which your toddler is already familiar.
Assist your child in constructing a word chain using one noun, verb, and as many adverbs and adjectives as possible.
For example, say the word is a bag, then you can choose words like small, pink, pretty, or shiny, etc.
Language building can occur in virtually every life situation.
For instance, if your child says the word puppy, you can say sleepy puppy or a cute puppy.
Songs
These are more than just gateways to harnessing your child’s musical abilities.
Songs help children to discover and learn new words.
The lyrics embedded in them have a sense of rhyme and rhythm.
It makes singing along fun and entertaining for kids.
Along with that, the simple act of putting a tune to an activity can transform that activity into a fun game that you can play with your kids.
Picture Books
Ever tried using picture book spotters? These are the go-to picks for a daily fun time with your toddler.
Reading picture books with your child encourages them to ask questions and make comments about the characters in the book.
Pause to look at pictures of interest and discuss them with your child.
You can repeat what you have read in the story under a character while pointing out the event that happens in the picture.
For example, you could say, “Joe is wearing a light blue shirt.
What is he wearing on his feet?”.
Questions and statements of this nature promote curiosity and good observational skills in your child, which will help to develop their language and communication skills.
Role-playing
As a parent, you can role-play scenarios that involve several characters for your children. With this, you can introduce new words related to your actions and enhance their imaginative and play skills. While you can employ imaginary props, you can go the extra mile by introducing visible costumes to enhance the spectacle.
As fun as it is, role-playing is a powerful way of introducing related words to your children while expanding their imagination. For instance, you can pretend to be a doctor to teach your children words related to the profession. These words include hospital, patients, ward, nurses, pills, diagnosis, beds, etc.
Wrap Up
Finally, you have gained extensive information about the best activities for language development.
We are committed to seeing your child excel in overall cognitive development, language and communication skills included.
Hence, we have curated the top activities to help you and your baby achieve that.
If your kids may need speech therapy, here are tips to support them.
Find out more child development tips on our page Encourage Your Toddler To Talk With Fun Activities
Our super author here at Famous Parenting and an absolute wealth of knowledge. She has studied many topics including creative writing, psychology and journalism but her real passion lies in raising her 3 children. Between working from home, homeschooling her youngest 2 children and navigating the world of teenagers she is a guru for parents.
