Here are some activities and things to remember when reinforcing good communication skills at home. Have fun!

Make communication fun, never a chore!
Help your young child to listen to sounds in his/her environment. Talk about them.
Talk to your child. Use simple sentences. Whatever you see or do, talk about it.
Take every opportunity to name things to improve vocabulary.

Be patient with your child. Listen to what he/she has to say.

Give him/her plenty of time to express him/herself.

Set aside a few minutes each day for talking and communicating about the day's events.
Read to or with your child regularly. Look at the print and pictures in books, magazines, or newspapers.
Give simple directions as part of an activity: Put your shoes on, then put the cup on the table...
Use an easy, relaxed, relatively slow rate of speaking. Pace your speech to accompany activities.

Make a game for adverbs: walk quickly, slowly, sadly, quitely, etc.
Make a game for prepositions: put an object in, on, under, beside, etc.
Make a game for adjectives: bring me something blue, shiny, warm, etc.

Name and classify objects: fruits, furniture, clothes, etc.

Show your child an interesting picture. Let him/her study it for a while.
Then take it away and ask him/her to describe it from memory.

When reading to or with your child, question events by asking who, what, where, when, why questions.
Then have him/her retell it from memory.

Have him/her give rhyming pairs for words you give.

Activities Courtesy of: 1. Hayes, Joanne: Medical College of Alabama; Speech and Hearing Clinic 2. Richardson Independent School District; Richardson, TX 3. Southern Methodist University: Speech and Hearing Clinic; Dallas, TX

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