Comprehension key to language learning
When we want to encourage a child to talk more, it seems to make sense to prompt him to just “say” more words. After all, if we want a child to talk, it seems to follow that we should be working on talking, right?
Not so fast.
For new talkers, this approach skips a critical step — understanding. That’s because comprehension needs to happen before a child can say a word about the right thing at the right time.
First, the word must make sense to the child. After all, spoken words are symbols. A child must understand what that symbol means before he can use it to refer to an object or person.
Receptive language comes first
Comprehension, known as receptive language, is often a missing piece when concerns start to arise about a child’s ability to talk on time. When we skip over comprehension and just prompt a child to “say” new words, we are skipping over a critical prerequisite skill that will make a huge difference in a child’s language skills now and far into the future.
If we want to increase a child’s functional spoken vocabulary, we have to start with increasing his ability to understand what words mean. We also have to help him attend to spoken language so that he is getting the most out of each exchange.
Easy tips to build language comprehension
Here are 3 ways to get started increasing listening comprehension, so that you can build expressive vocabulary skills more quickly.
Get on a child’s level and get close. This is essential to gaining the full attention of busy little ones. If you are not up close, you may not be gaining your child’s full attention and he could be missing out on what you are telling him.
Be interesting. To help a child make meaning of what you are telling him, it has to be worth attending to. Your presentation can make new learning more memorable. That means you need to maximize the inflection in your voice when sharing key concepts, as well as including corresponding gestures and facial expressions.
Make it fun. Pick a specific target word that you want to help him understand and integrate that into play schemes. Children learn best through play with a real person. Use your child’s toys while modeling targets in natural ways that correspond to what is happening in play. This will boost your child’s comprehension skills because it helps him see and understand the words you are using. In addition, you are helping support his ability to interact with others and build foundational social language skills.
If you need more support building speech and language skills at home, contact us at Heather@expansespeech.com or at 919.216.6231 for a free consultation.