Continuing on from my last post 'Ideas to develop Language from being in Lockdown - Part 2: Let's get creative' I felt it important to explore another areas where you can entertain and develop language at the same time.
Books are a great way to develop all areas of a child's speech and language development. It isn't just about the story you read to the child, there is so much more!
Please note that I do not gain any financial or other incentives from you clicking on any of the links included in this post. I just wanted to provide links for you to find bits we love :-)
Books
E loves books which makes this topic easy for me to write about, she would happily sit for hours reading/looking at her books and has done for a while. I try to diversify how we read books and activities you can do around them to make it more interesting for her. Let's be honest that you also need to keep sane yourself - reading a book for the 100th time in a week can become a little exhausting! So let's talk about some ways to mix it up!
First and simple... read them
We all love the idyllic picture of sitting in a nice big cosy armchair while snuggled with our child reading our favourite childhood story. That can be challenging to maintain and unless your child is a bookworm like E you need some ideas. So here are my hints and tips.
1. Start with interactive books - ones that make noise, have flaps to lift, have sensory features such as furry bits.
That's not my... books are great first ones to get - you can often get them second hand
in charity shops or on selling sites for not a lot of money. They have so many different ones that you can find an area of interest for your child.
Dear Zoo was another favourite as that had lots of flaps as well as these books which have felt flaps which can be easier for tiny hands. We also loved the Julia Donaldson Tales from Acorn Wood.
By using these types of books to start with you will extend your child's joint attention and listening skills, model common and simple vocabulary as well as simple sentences. By reading the same books over and over you will give your child the opportunity to try copying the language you are reading and modelling for them in a structured way.
2. Books which rhyme are always a good next step. A great recommendation from my sister in law was 'a busy day for birds' - E had memorised it along with the actions we put in place which made her giggle and really extended her interest in books. Any of the Julia Donaldson collection are great for early rhyming (a particular favourite was 'a squash and a squeeze'), we had a lot of the board books which from a young age E could look at independently. Rhyming is great for language development, it gives children a chance to explore language in a whole different way while gathering an awareness of how sounds changing in words can create whole new meanings.
3. Books with more text can be a challenging step to move into. Julia Donaldson books and Paddington books helped us with this. Try introducing a slightly longer book at bedtime with another more known short book afterwards to help encourage your child to attend to a slightly longer story.
In terms of Speech and Language development I've already discussed most of it above however the biggest point here is it will extend your child's attention skills when participating in an adult-led activity.
Try looking at books but not reading them
This may feel like a strange concept but it gives you an opportunity to talk about what is happening in the picture and come up with your own interpretation of the story and or the characters. This article gives lots of options of different books you can buy.
Books with no words might sound strange but they are a great way to help you to talk about the pictures without just reading them. The types of questions you can ask include (think of all your 'wh' question words):
Characters: Who are the characters? What are their names? How are they related? What age are they?
Location: Where are the characters in the story? How did they get there? Do you think they live there all the time? What made them move to a new place?
Feelings: How are the characters feeling? Why are they feeling that way?
What's Happening: What are the characters doing? Why are they doing it? What do you think they will do next? Where are they going? What might another character do?
As you can see the options are endless. I wouldn't necessarily recommend just asking question after question but you could discuss the pictures together and come up with ideas as a team. Once you've discussed the first page move onto the next page and see what happened.
You don't need books with no words to be able to do this. When you get a new story try this concept. Instead of reading the story talk about the pictures and what you are seeing, come up with an idea as to what is going to happen in the book. Once you have discussed it then read the page to your child so they can hear the Author's ideas.
So why does this help with Speech and Language development? Well it gives you an opportunity to develop your child's language skills, model vocabulary, sentence structures, develop turn taking and conversation skills, introduce new concepts and increase attention and listening skills.
Taking the book into your everyday world
This is honestly the thing E and I enjoy doing the most. We read a story (the current favourite for doing this with is 'Green Eggs and Ham' by Dr Seuss) and then use the content of that book in our day to day activities. In this case it was making green eggs and ham for breakfast. We talked about what we could add to it to make it green and then enjoyed it all together.
We have also done this by going on a Gruffalo hunt, seeing how many of the different birds we have seen from 'Busy day for birds', made a beautiful butterfly from the 'Hungry Caterpillar' and many many more. By moving the content of books into play activities together you have create opportunities to develop language in a functional way in your day to day activities.
The end I promise
So as before the main thing I wanted to convey in this post is that there are so many opportunities in your house to have lots of fun, waste periods of time (important at the moment when you are just trying to get from one day to the next in lockdown) and give you plenty of opportunities to develop your child's language, play, understanding, attention and listening and general communication skills.
I have decided to post 4 parts to this blog post (as otherwise it would be ridiculously long). The next instalment will be:
Ideas to develop Language from being in Lockdown - Part 4: TV can be okay.
If you missed it before the post before this was:
Ideas to develop Language from being in Lockdown - Part 1: Toys and ways to use them.
Ideas to develop Language from being in Lockdown - Part 2: Let's get creative!
All of them are ideas for keeping your little ones entertained at home while developing all the different areas of their speech, language and communication.
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