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Hello and welcome to Little Learners. Today I'm going to be going through five things
you can do to help your child's speech development. Before we get started don't
forget to subscribe to this channel so that you can see more videos like this
and if you do find the video helpful give it a like as it really helps out the channel. Okay
so tip number one is all about modelling, so we need to show children how speech is done, how
we pronounce words and it's important for them to see us talking and we need to allow them to
see how our mouth moves when we talk. So make sure that your child can see very clearly, your mouth, so
that they can see all of those movements because that's really important for them to understand
how different sounds are made in the mouth. When your child is talking you can repeat back to
them what they say so that they can hear it pronounced correctly. So here's an example
of my son who is two and me repeating back what he said.
[Audio recording] [Amy] Cooper, what's Henry doing?
[Cooper] A- a train! [Amy] He's a train? He's pulling a train?
[Cooper] Coal! [Amy] With coal.
[Amy] Where is he going?
[Cooper] Here! [Amy] Here.
[Cooper] Away stey. [Amy] Away to the station.
[Cooper] A hill [inaudible] [Amy] And up the hill.
[Cooper] A shey [inaudible]
[Cooper] A sheh! [Amy] He's going to go to the sheds?
[Cooper] Yeah.
[Cooper] Oh ten. [Amy] With his tender.
[Cooper] Okay. [Amy] Okay.
[End of audio recording]
This just helps children to hear what they have said pronounced in the correct way. It also lets
them know that you understand what they're saying which is really important for them. If your child
or toddler is a bit older and they're pronouncing words incorrectly, so for example if they're trying
to say the word 'green' but they say 'geen' rather than saying 'No, no that's not how we say it', we
don't want to do that, we want to just model to them how we say the word. So if they say 'geen' we
say 'green'. You might also want to ask them to say the word again to you so, 'Can you say green?' and
get them to say it back to you again. If they pronounce it incorrectly again we don't want
to go overboard with this so rather than asking them to repeat it again, you can just model again,
'green' and that helps them to hear that sound in the correct pronunciation - with the correct
pronunciation - and also see how your mouth's moving when you say it. Tip number two is: talk a lot.
You need to be talking to your children all the time from when they're born, so you might just
want to narrate everything that you're doing, so if you're changing their nappy: 'Okay I'm going to
change your nappy now, I'm taking the tabs off, one, two, pulling the nappy down, oh I can see a wee in
your nappy,' and you're just narrating everything that you do it does sometimes feel like you're
talking to yourself but just remember that you're talking to your child and this is so valuable. The
more that they are exposed to speech and language the more they're going to pick it up. Before your
child's able to even talk with you, you can still be talking to them about everything that you're
doing in the day. You can ask them questions, you can narrate what's going on. When they get a little
bit older and they can start talking with you then make sure that you're really listening to
what they're saying, repeating back to them what they're saying and just talking to them as much
as you possibly can. Even when they're sitting in their high chair and you're preparing their
dinner you can say, 'Okay I'm getting a knife out now I'm going to chop chop chop chop, and just
talk through everything that you're doing. When children get even older and they're able to have
a conversation then make sure that you're really listening to what they have to say and talking
with them, letting them know that what they have to say has value and that you enjoy talking with them.
Tip number three is all about nursery rhymes and action rhymes. So singing is a great way to explore
and learn language. Nursery rhymes are great, lots of rhyming in there so that really helps with
understanding language and speech development, and then action rhymes help children to put meaning
with a word, attach meaning to a word, and expand their vocabulary. So action rhymes are things
like 'Head, shoulders, knees and toes', 'If you're happy and you know it', anything where there's an
action in there as well. This is something that you can do together and it can really help to
boost their vocabulary and again get them talking and get them listening to language. Tip number four
is all about extending their own speech. So if a child is playing with a car and they say 'car',
you might say, 'yes, red car' so that you're just adding a little bit on to what they've said.
If your child's a bit older and they say, 'Mummy gone work', you might say, 'Yes, Mummy has gone to work,'
just to expand on what they're saying and model to them how we construct a sentence or how we might
build on one word. And tip number five is all about playing with sounds. So we do this with very
young children, we go through all of the animal sounds and making all of those different sounds.
Obviously those aren't words but it's getting children used to using different sounds, moving
their mouths in different ways and also attaching meaning to that sound, so they know that 'moo' is to
do with a cow. You can also play with environmental sounds, so if you are in the park and you hear
leaves rustling you can try and make that rustling sound together. If you hear a car in the distance
you might be saying 'vroom' because that's the noise that the car made. So just distinguishing between
different sounds, differentiating between all of those different sounds in our environment.
And then of course you can explore very silly sounds, so I know that my son and I are often making very
silly sounds. Before children can start to say words you might be doing things with them like [makes babbling noises],
and they'll be copying you and that's really great for them and even when
they're older and they can say certain words, making silly sounds is really fun
and a really engaging way to play with language and speech.
So those were five different things you can do to help with your child's speech development.
If you have any other tips please leave them in the comments section down below. Don't forget
if this video was helpful to you please give it a like as it really helps out the channel
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you never miss a future video. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time.
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