Parents play an important role in child’s upbringing when it comes to speech development. Here are a few tips that parents can follow:
There are a lot of ways you can help your toddler with learning to talk.
1. The more you talk to your toddler, the more opportunities he/she gets to learn to talk. However, don’t rush, all toddlers are different and learn to talk at different rates.
2. Watch his/her face and look interested whenever she tries to speak to you.
3. Focus on what your toddler is trying to say and not on pronunciation.
4. Encourage when he/she does communicate successfully.
5. Get your toddler’s attention by saying his/her name before you talk.
6. Make eye contact while talking so he/she will know you are talking to them.
7. Give your toddler plenty of opportunities to talk during everyday activities.
8. Expose your toddler to a new situation where you can introduce more words.
9. Take him/her out for a walk and point out things you see when you are out and teach them through actions.
10. Repeat back what you hear your toddler trying to speak to you, even if he/she doesn’t say it clearly.
11. Simplify your speech as it helps to focus on the important information.
12. Switch off unnecessary background noise such as the TV, music player or radio to avoid distractions.
Importance of playtime for speech development:
Engage your child in different games which help in developing her brain from an early age. It also plays an important role in developing their speech and language skills. It improves their social skills and introduce them to new words and enhance their communications skills. Toys play an important role in the kid’s overall growth and development. Here are a few toys that will help your child with speech development.
1. Toy Phone
It helps to improve social skills by observing how you speak on the phone. Your child learns to imitate your way of speaking. It will encourage your child to talk. Your child’s quality of speech develops through toy phone games. It enhances social and emotional skills and improves their language and speech development and enhances their thinking ability.
2. Building the Blocks
Building the blocks is one of the best toys for your child. It can help them to learn new words and various concepts such as colours, shapes, directions. It helps to learn about on, under, in front of, top, bottom and many more. It helps to learn about numbers, colours and shapes and improves their fine motor skills (hand-eye coordination).
3. Hide and Seek
Hide and Seek is one of the interesting games for your kid. Hide all of your child’s favourite toys in different places inside the house. Their favourite things are taken away from your child, they are going to talk to ask for help or to find out where their favourite toys went. When they ask for help, guide them and search with them. Give them clues with directions such as near the bed, on the shelf, in the cupboard, opposite to the table. It encourages your child to talk, learn new words. It helps them to understand directions and improves your child concentration and listening skills. It improves the bond between you and your child.
4. Puppet Show
Does your child enjoy watching cartoons? Your child is sure to enjoy this little puppy show. Use a different voice for each puppet so that the child believes the puppet is talking. Have a simple and interactive conversion with your child. Allow your child to interact with the puppet, shake the hand, touch it, etc. You can hide behind a bed and display only the puppets to make it more believable and interactive. It helps your child to express their emotions freely. It improves their listening skills and stimulates your child’s brain activity. It develops their speech and language skills.
5. Actions with Sound
It is easier for your child to learn to make sounds than words. This is a fun and effective activity to develop your child’s speech and language skills. You make the sound with the action and ask your child to imitate you. You can use the falling example such as say; jump, jump & quote, when jumping on the bed or trampoline. Say Chop, Chop, Chop; when cutting something, Say beep! beep! beep! when you hear a vehicle honking. It improves your child’s listening skills and rhyming words help them to understand better. It teaches your child word sound. It helps you bond with your child better with the help of an effective activity to help your child to speak.
6. Flute
It improves your child’s pronunciation. It helps your child in healthy breathing, strengthening their oral muscles make speech easier. It improves their dexterity (finger and hand coordination).
Takeaway
Speak correctly and clearly to your child to teach them correct pronunciation and good speech. Repeat what your child says and then respond to them. Play the yes or no games and ask your child to make up the question. Come up with interactive ways to teach your child new words. Sing rhymes and songs over and over again to help them speak fluently. When you are taking a walk, point at something and ask what it is? If they don’t know, tell them what it is? Try asking them what that same object is after a few days to understand if they recollect.
