Many parents often wonder how they can help enhance their child’s speech/language development at home. My top recommendation is usually simple: read a book together! Reading offers a fantastic way to work on various skills with kids. When you read together, you can tackle “wh” type questions (like who, what, where), compare characters, discuss the pictures, follow a basic storyline, understand basic story structure, explore emotions, boost phonological awareness, expand vocabulary, and share bonding with your child. You’re probably already doing many of these strategies without even realizing it.
Now, let’s talk about vocabulary development. Shared book reading has been proven as a powerful tool for enhancing children’s early language skills. Research has shown that reading together can support a wide range of language abilities, such as growing vocabulary, improving storytelling and conversation skills, raising awareness about printed words, building the foundation for future reading success, and even boosting phonological awareness (the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words). Moreover, kids who are read to regularly during their early years tend to learn language faster, enter school with a richer vocabulary, and become more successful readers in school.
My personal and professional advice is to make reading a daily habit whenever you have a free moment. Don’t hesitate to read the same story multiple times; in fact, doing so can enhance your child’s understanding of the story and help them see and grasp new words. Multiple exposures to new vocabulary words can help store them in their long-term memory. For instance, a study at the University of Maryland found that preschoolers can learn new words successfully after just one reading of a storybook with an adult if the target words were repeated.
To further enhance your child’s vocabulary, remember that they can start to understand a word better with repeated exposure, especially in different situations. For example, you can read a story about going on a leaf hunt and then actually go on one. While on the hunt, use some of the words from the story. This repetition and exposure in various contexts can significantly support your child’s vocabulary development.
Some of my favorite books for preschoolers are:
- There Was an Old Lady that Swallowed a Fly (they have multiple for just about every season), Author: Lucille Colandro
- Little Blue Truck, Author: Alice Schertle
- Snowmen at Night, Author: Caralyn Buehner
- Apple Trouble, Author Ragnhild Scamell
- Maisy Makes Gingerbread, Author: Lucy Cousins
- The Very Lazy Ladybug, Author: Isobel Finn
- Dog’s Colorful Day, Author: Emma Dodd
Below are some other areas of language that you can target while you read!
Receptive Language:
- Identifying vocabulary, For example you could say, “I see the big yellow flower on the page, where is the smallest flower?”
- Pointing and labeling pictures in the story
- Answering wh-type questions Examples: Where is the Dog? Who is next to the cow?
Expressive Language:
- Can you describe what the snowman looks like?
- Model and build on child’s utterances
- Make sure you are providing sentences including correct syntax and grammar
Inferencing:
- Why do you think the sky is turning gray?
- Look at her facial expressions, what can you infer about how she feels?
Sequencing:
- After reading the story use flashcards to retell the story using temporal words (i.e. first, next, then, last or beginning, middle, end).
- This helps children organize the information and then communicate it efficiently
Speech Sounds:
- Model correct productions of target speech sounds
Have child look for their speech sound they are targeting
Enhancing Language Development Through Reading
Hadley, E. B., Dickinson, D. K., Hirsch-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2018). Building semantic networks: The impact of a vocabulary intervention on preschoolers’ depth of word knowledge. Reading Research Quarterly. Advance online publication.
doi: 10.1002/rrq.225
Preschoolers’ Word-Learning During Storybook Reading Interactions: Comparing Repeated and Elaborated Input
O’Fallon, M., Von Holzen, K., & Newman, R. S. (2020). Preschoolers’ word-learning during storybook reading interactions: Comparing repeated and elaborated input. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63(3), 814–826. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_jslhr-19-00189
Author:
Sophie Dickson M.S., CCC-SLP email: [email protected]