Help your child with understanding language

Receptive language skills or verbal comprehension is how your child receives and interprets the information they hear. This is key to developing the skills needed for talking and learning.

From the moment they are born babies start to learn how to communicate. They do this through listening, watching, copying and touching. Play also helps them to develop their communication and social skills. Before children can use spoken language effectively, it is important that they develop their skills in looking and listening, play and understanding.

Your child may be finding it tricky to understand language if:

they often need instructions repeating
you frequently need to simplify your language
they find it hard to follow and contribute to a conversation
they have some difficulty in understanding stories

Children can often struggle to understand spoken information or instructions. This might be because the sentence is too long or because they don't understand what some of the words mean. Crucially, our children need to be able to understand words and sentences before they can use them.

When learning what words mean and what it is you are saying, children rely on clues - perhaps your actions and facial expressions or the objects you are holding or pointing to. This might mean that they appear to understand better than they actually do.

Not being able to understand words and sentences can leave children feeling uncertain and confused. They may also seem to ignore you or do the wrong things.

Activities to make language learning fun

Odd one out

Which is the odd one out of the following:

sheep, cow, chicken, lion
apple, orange, grapes, carrot
chair, table, sofa
football, rugby, judo, cricket

Out and about and at home

Model words by naming them (eg "mmm, tomato"). Do this lots of times!

Later on ask your child to find, point to or show you a word you have been working on, e.g. "Can you get me a tomato?"

Talk about routines as you do them such as getting dressed, setting the table, your journey to and from school, going shopping, bath time, cooking.

Riddle me this

Tell riddles and see if your child can guess the answer:

It's an animal, it has stripes, it's black and white.
It's a food, it's round, it's crunchy, it grows on trees, it begins with 'a'.
You use it to eat with, it has a round bit at the end, you stir your tea with it.
You can watch this, you can play it, you need a ball, you score goals.

True or false

Make statements and see if your child can tell you whether it is true or false.

Christmas is in November.
The leaves fall off the trees in spring.
Eating lots of sugar is good for you.
Sheep lay eggs.

Jabber jabber

Think of a sentence, but replace a key word with "jabber jabber" or another nonsense word - perhaps your child could make one up. Can your child guess the word?

Hat - you wear a jabber jabber on your head.
Swing - the jabber jabber is my favourite thing in the park.
Swim - my friend Joe can jabber jabber like a fish.

What's in the bag? (or box? or behind the door?)

Describe items to your child and see if they can guess the mystery object.

It is small, brown and you cuddle it in bed.
It has skin that peels away and begins with a 'b'.
It feels rough to touch and I pull it through my hair every day.

In the garden or at the park

Show your child different actions, e.g. "Look daddy is spinning! Can Tom spin? Wow - good spinning!". Lots of repetition is important.

Ways to support your child

Get their attention - when children are busy with another activity it can be hard to listen. Say their name first.
Talking speed - slow down and pause between sentence to help your child think about what has been said.
Minimal instructions - try not to give too many instructions at once.
Simplify the language you use with your child so it is at a level they can understand (eg usually just above how much they are saying).
Repeat - ask your child to repeat the instruction to ensure that they have understood what they need to do.
Describe - in everyday activities describe to your child what they are doing, eg when dressing/undressing you might say "take your shoes off/put your shoes on".
Make learning fun - play around with words, make up silly rhymes. Understanding how words are made up and rhyme helps with reading.
Give children time - children need time to process what others have said, work out what they are going to say and how they are going to say it.
Encourage children to ask when they are unsure - check out understanding by asking children if they have understood - can they tell you what they need to do?
First/then - use this concept to help your child know what order they need to complete the instruction (eg "First get your jacket, then put your shoes on").
Show - physically show your child what to do, or use visuals (pictures, objects, gestures) to help them understand.
Books and stories - read books over and over, pointing and talking about the pictures so that your child becomes really familiar with them.