Try these activities at home to help your child learn to listen, process, and communicate effectively.

Developing early language skills is a critical component of your child’s success in school. ‎In class, children must listen and process new information, communicate with peers and teachers, and express themselves clearly and effectively. Research tells us that children with strong language and communication skills are less likely to have challenges with reading and more likely to excel in school. Help your young child develop stronger language skills with the ideas detailed below.

Ages 2-4
Read
First and foremost, read, read, read! The more you read to your child, the more exposure he has to language and the more this skill will improve. Try spending 20 minutes before bed reading to him or carve out a daily daytime reading window. Start with basic board books (especially those with rhyming patterns like “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” or “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”), then graduate to longer books with more complex plots. You can try asking your child what he thinks the story will be about based on the cover, what he suspects may happen next, and why a character may feel happy or sad. The more you can engage your child in the reading material, the more progress you will see in his language and comprehension skills.

Scrapbook
For further language development, try making a scrapbook with your child containing different categories. Cut out images from magazines, newspapers, or the internet, and group them into categories such as “foods you can eat for dinner,” “things you can drive,” “pets,” “toys you can play‎ with during the summer,” and so on. Help your child paste the images into the correct category, then have her describe them. For instance, she might assess the pictures she pasted in the “foods you can eat for dinner” category and say, “For dinner, I can eat spaghetti with meatballs, chicken with broccoli, or maccaroni and cheese. My favorite dinner is maccaroni and cheese!” For an added language bonus, have her paste together some silly pictures, like a cat sliding down a slide, a bunny playing basketball, or a deer eating cereal, then have her describe “what’s wrong” with the pictures.

Identifying Body Parts Game
To help build your young child’s vocabulary, play the Name-That-Body-Part game, where you start by selecting a body part (like ears) and describe what you can do with them, like “With my ears, I can listen to you and your friends giggling.” Then have your child pick another body part and do the same. For his nose, for instance, he might say, “With my nose, I can smell the yummy brownies cooking!” or “I can smell fresh flowers with my nose.” Move from one player to the next, with each player naming a different body part and then describing what he can do with it. The sillier, the better!

‎Following Directions
Following directions is an important aspect of school success. Help your child learn to follow multi-step directions by practicing following directions activities at home. Start with one step directions, like “clean your room” or “wash your hands.” Then move onto two step directions, like “pick up your shoes and put them in the closet,” or “bring me your brush and put your socks on.” Once your child has mastered two step directions, move onto ones with three steps, like “brush your teeth, put on your shoes, and grab your backpack.” Then move onto those with four steps, and so on. You can later have your child give you instructions for building a castle, fort, or LEGO creation, detailing each step of the process.

Play The “Clues” Game
Build your child’s language and vocabulary skills by playing the “clues” game. To play, give your child a clue (or series of clues) describing and object and have her try to identify it’s name. For instance, you might say, “it is long, sharp, and we cut food with it” (for knife) or ” it is often red, has wheels, and can be pulled” (for wagon). Then have your child come up with her own clues to test you or her friends or siblings. Listening to descriptions and identifying the corresponding objects can help foster language development.

Daily Activities
Try using daily activities to build your child’s language skills. When you are at the grocery store, ask him to describe the different fruits he sees. Does he see apples? If so, what color are they? Are they large or small?‎ How do they smell? As you walk through the supermarket aisles, look for items with different shapes, sizes, weights, and textures. If he doesn’t know what the item is, describe it to him, then ask him to repeat the description in his own words and answer questions about it. The more discussion you can elicit, the better!

‎As your child moves through school, the language and communication demands will increase rapidly. Try these activities at home to help your child learn to listen, process, and communicate effectively.

The post Ways To Boost Your Child’s Language Development appeared first on EBL Coaching.

A guide for parents of picky readers.

Your child loves to play outside, watch television, surf the web, and do just about anything besides reading for pleasure. In our tech-based, quick-access-to-information world, it’s easy to find alternatives to relaxing and reading a book from cover to cover. Yet reading offers so many benefits: vocabulary and language development, imagination enrichment, ‎improved focus, relaxation, and so much more. Help your child learn to love reading with the ideas detailed below.

Read with your child!

Spend time reading with your child, even as she gets older and tends to read alone. When she is young, read to her, always stopping along the way to discuss the characters, setting, images, and plot. Ask her to retell events in the story, make predictions, and answer inferential questions. When she learns to read, try alternating pages or chapters with you reading one and her reading the next, allowing you to model good fluency while continuing to monitor her comprehension. When your child is a bit older, encourage her to post a review of the book online or even create her own book review journal. The more engaging and interactive the reading task is, the more she will enjoy it.

Identify your child’s interest

Avoid “forcing” your child to read about a topic he finds completely uninteresting. Instead, try to identify some topics he’s interested in, like the Titanic, baseball, or dinosaurs, and then hone in on that topic. If he’s fascinated by the Titanic, for instance, ‎find images online of the interior and exterior of the ship, pull up interesting articles about passengers who were on it, and maybe even seek out a museum exhibit on the Titanic–all before introducing a full book on the subject. Then, once you’ve peaked his interest with interesting content, colorful images, an interactive activities, find a simple book on the topic and encourage him to try reading it. You may be surprised at how much he actually enjoys reading the book once you’ve sparked his interest and presented fascinating background knowledge.

Create a family ritual

Try designating one night per week as “family reading night.” During this time, all family members converge in one spot to read together. Each person can select any type reading material–a newspaper article, comic book, magazine, novel, or the like. You might “sweeten the pot” by serving a tasty treat and giving your child something special (aside from family time) to look forward to. To avoid monotony, perhaps change the scenery each week–one night you can gather in your living room, another night you can cluster around a fireplace, and yet another time you can take a trip to the beach. Just be sure to make it a fun, relaxing ritual that your child will look forward to.

Create a reading zone

Try changing your child’s mind set that reading is boring by creating a fun reading area in her room or play space. You might include a colorful rug, funky lamp, bean bag chair, and art on the surrounding wall. Make it a place she will look forward to hanging out in–an environment that is enjoyable and relaxing.

Move beyond paper books

In our age of technology, there are now so many options available for reading aside from old fashioned paper books. Try downloading e-books onto your tablet, which may be more motivating for your tech-savvy child. Audio books are also a great option; while kids may not practice the phonetic aspect of stories using these “books”, listening to them helps build vocabulary, comprehension, and knowledge on different subjects. Listening to these books can also help them find joy in getting “lost in a story,” something they may not otherwise experience if they don’t read.

‎Reading is an activity that many children have sadly come to dislike. Yet not only can reading be a real source of pleasure, is such an important skill for success in school and beyond. Try these activities to help your child learn to enjoy reading and discover the many benefits it has to offer.

The post What To Do If Your Child Hates To Read appeared first on EBL Coaching.