Supporting Your Child's Language Development Through Games and Activities

Children complete their language development at different age groups. It is essential to support the language development of children during their growth years. You can plan effective activities to support your child's language development. Children around the age of 2, when they are just beginning to speak, will enjoy games and activities that promote language development. For example, discussing illustrated stories and tales can positively support language development.

Activities you do with your child during the preschool years are important for strengthening the bond between you and enhancing their cognitive skills. We have prepared game examples that support language development, allowing you to have fun with your child and build a strong connection.

Games that Support Language Development

Imitation Game

Children often enjoy imitation games. You can mimic speech through toy phones, for instance. Speech games are effective for children to learn new words, form different sentences, and enhance their imagination.

Narrating Books

Looking at and discussing illustrated story and fairy tale books together, describing the characters in the pictures, can contribute to your child's language development. These creative activities are ideal for spending quality time with your child.

Singing and Reciting Rhymes

Children's songs and rhymes are part of language development games during the preschool period. Funny children's songs that you can sing together can be a fun way to learn.

Longest Sentence

The practice of forming long sentences can be beneficial for children's language development. Instead of using imperative sentences in your conversations with your child during the day, you can create more explanatory sentences. This can help them learn different words.

Naming Game

The naming game, which is part of language development games, is highly beneficial for developing language skills. You can show your child various objects in your home and ask them to name them as they begin to walk. You can assist them until they learn to say it on their own. This way, you can expand your child's vocabulary. You can play this game at home, in the store, at the park, basically anywhere.

Question Asking Activity

You can ask simple and clear questions to your child, such as "Do you want strawberries?" Then, you can encourage them to speak in complete sentences. This helps them build strong and consistent sentences. Additionally, asking questions helps lay a solid foundation for them to express their thoughts better in the future.

Puppet Play

Children are creative and fun-loving. Creative children's toys, which are also educational tools, can be an active part of your playtime with your child at this stage. Toy puppets can be a top choice among games that support language development at the age of 2, allowing you to talk with your child and make playtime more enjoyable.

Alphabet Game

You can write the letters of the alphabet on a large and colorful cardboard. You can give your child some objects and ask them to tell you what these objects are. Then, you can help them match the objects with the letters. This way, your child's spelling ability and language development will progress.

Consistent and Smart Conversational Activities

You can talk to your child about what they like and their thoughts. When you start getting responses, you should listen carefully. Then, you can repeat what they say using correct grammar and vocabulary. This helps improve your child's pronunciation.

Emphasizing Details

When your child starts showing you objects and says, "This is a house," you can emphasize other details about the object. For example, you can say, "This is a white house, and it has five floors." This enhances your child's vocabulary and observational skills. While passing by products in the store, you can talk about what the products are, or while passing by people, you can discuss what people are doing. However, make sure these conversations don't turn into baby talk.

Block Games

Building towers and similar structures together provides a great opportunity to work on language skills. You can use phrases like "up," "down," and "high" found on toy blocks to explain these words. You can use words to describe the structure as new blocks are added.

Open-Ended Question Activity

Open-ended questions support language development. For example, a question like "The cat is gone. Where do you think it might be hiding?" can encourage your child's desire to speak since it requires new and different answers.

Describing Your Actions

Narrating your actions supports your child's language development. For instance, you can say things like, "I'm putting on my shoes right now. Later, I'll put on my coat." You can even describe your child's movements. While playing with building blocks, you can use sentences like, "You should place this block on top of the other one, and now the tower is starting to grow."

Counting Game

The counting game, found among language-supporting games, is a mathematical game that enhances language skills. In this game, you not only teach numbers but also new words. You can start by counting different objects or fruits and then help your child understand what they are by describing these items.

Points to Consider for Parents in Language Development

Using television for a child's language development may not be the right approach. Children watching television are mostly passive viewers and not very active. Therefore, preventing your child from spending too much time in front of the television is important.

Creating a family environment for conversations, organizing magazine and book reading hours, discussing an animated show watched, and similar activities can be beneficial for children's language development. When children speak, avoid interrupting them, and listen to them attentively in a sincere manner. One of the most common mistakes parents make is not listening to their children. Children can be eager to tell something from the early stages of speaking. Not discouraging their enthusiasm is also important for language development.

Figures that children look up to can influence their development. Therefore, as parents, solving problems in the family environment through discussion, spending less time on technological devices, especially listening to each other at the dinner table, is very important. You need to make good use of the time you spend talking with your child, which helps them establish a connection with you and contributes to their mental and language development. Effective listening by making eye contact, not interrupting, and using affirming body language can be crucial in convincing your child to communicate.

Language development is a significant part of your child's growth. While it may happen quickly in some children, it may be slower in others. Remember, your child imitates and learns from you. Therefore, speaking as clearly as possible is essential to help them understand words. You should introduce new words to them regularly through language development games and explain what they mean.