I CAN – The Children’s Communication Charity has come up with a list of the top toys and games to stimulate language learning.

The charity says there are lots of ways that parents and carers of young children can support the development of children’s communication skills.

Having fun with your child is a really helpful way of encouraging them to talk and pay attention.

1. Imaginative play – Dressing up clothes, doll’s houses, teddy/dolly tea sets. Any of these toys can be used to join in with your child’s imaginative play. It will help you expand their language beyond what they can immediately see and develop their creativity. Try to comment on what they are saying and doing rather than asking lots of questions. This not only reinforces their language skills, but also shows them that you are interested and listening to them.
2. Messy play – Messy play helps with sensory exploration and can be used to develop language skills. Things like water play, sand play, chalk boards, finger painting and playdough all help children to develop their awareness of different sensations and can be used to talk about actions, for example, pour, squash, squeeze, pull, rub, as well as describing different colours and textures
3. Inset Puzzles – You can use these puzzles to help your child build their early vocabulary. Start by commenting on the piece that they are putting in, then move on to giving them the choice “do you want the car or the fish?” before encouraging them to ask for what they want by saying, “which piece do you want now?”
4. Listening to CDs – Your child’s listening and attention skills are crucial for learning language. You can use listening to CDs to help build on these, and add information to what they are listening to. For example, if they hear a cockerel crowing, talk to them about farms where you might see a cockerel, the other animals that you might see etc.
5. Repetitive books – Help children listen to and enjoy stories. Don’t be afraid to tell a story more than once, as repetition helps children to understand and remember the words that they hear. Children love to join in with the bits that they remember and so books that have a repetitive line throughout them are great.
6. Simple lotto boards – Lotto boards are great for helping children to develop their vocabulary. You can talk to them about the pictures they find, and move on to asking them to tell you about the pictures.
7. Colour and shape matching and counting games and activities – These types of games will help children learn important words that will be helpful to them in nursery and school. You can play these games together and talk about the colours and shapes that you can see around your home.
8. Puppets – Puppets are a great way to develop imagination and story-telling skills in children. Make up stories and act them out with puppets, or re-tell familiar stories that you already know.
9. Sequencing toys – For example coloured bricks, threading beads. It is helpful to talk about time and sequences – play with and talk about sequences of coloured bricks or shapes as well as numbers and days of the week to encourage your child with words such as first, next, last, before, after.
10. Board games for turn-taking – Taking turns is an essential communication skill and playing any simple board games that involve taking turns not only helps children to develop this skill, it also helps them to listen and attend to an activity for longer periods of time.
11. Rhyming lotto, rhyming books – Having fun with words and rhymes can help children learn skills they need for reading and developing literacy. By learning the differences and similarities between word sounds, your child will build the foundations for reading and writing.

Further information

For more information go to: www.ican.org.uk

Written by Rachel Harrison, Speech and Language Therapist, on behalf of Integrated Treatment Services.