More Tips For Supporting Your Child’s Language Development Without The Flashcards
If your child is not speaking, you might be feeling a lot of pressure to do everything you possibly can to help them learn new words.
Maybe you find yourself asking, “What is it?”, followed by, “It’s a…” hundreds of times each day. Maybe you’ve researched all the best flashcards and apps in search of the one that will get your child talking. And maybe you feel exhausted, frustrated, and worried.
While there is no guaranteed “get talking fast” solution - after all, every child has unique needs - there are ways for you to give your child the support they need to learn language and hold on to your sanity, too!
Try incorporating one or two of the following strategies into your daily routine and see where it takes you:
Create albums using the photos and videos you take of your child doing everyday things, as well as exciting outings. Allow them to scroll through the albums and, when you are looking with them, narrate the activity. It can be as mundane as, “We brushed your teeth before bed last night. Brushing teeth helps prevent cavities and makes your breath smell fresh!”, or as fun as talking about your trip to the zoo, the friends you met there, and why the zoo train has a big bell on the front. You can even do this in place of a bedtime book every so often!
Have your child help make their snack. Let them pour the goldfish, spread the peanut butter, or squirt the ketchup. If you want a little more structure to guide your language modeling, try having a color of the day and eating all red foods for snack, or a number of the day and have two crackers, two apple slices, two cheese cubes, etc.
When the weather is good, turn your daily walk or backyard play time into a scavenger hunt. You can even use those flashcards for this one! Gather a collection of cards or pictures of objects to look for and head outside.
Pull out the playdoh and let yourself be a kid again. You can use the cookie cutters, the rolling pins, and the playdoh scissors (all great for developing fine motor skills), but you can also roll out a playdoh worm, shape it into anything you like, and see the delight in your child’s eyes when they get to squish it.
Follow your child’s lead when you introduce a new toy, game, or book. It’s okay if they don’t play with it exactly the way it was intended. It’s okay if you don’t read all the words in the book every time.
Speech and language take time to develop. Turning play and quality time into learning can make it much more pleasant, and you might see progress even faster when the quizzing is out and the fun is in!
