1. Talk to Children Constantly
Talking directly to your children from birth is the most important thing you can do to develop their language skills. Parents should speak to their children while performing everyday tasks, such as feeding, bathing, dressing, changing diapers, playing and riding in the car. Narrating what is happening at the moment is an effective strategy for very young children who can't yet talk. As children get older, asking questions that require more than a one-word answer helps engage them.
2. Model Good Speech
Avoid baby talk whenever possible. Using correct gram with your child from an early age will prevent bad language habits from forming. If you use baby talk to communicate with your child, re-frame the sentence properly afterwards so that the child learns the correct way to speak. For example, if a child calls his bottle "ba-ba," you can say, "You want your ba-ba? Okay, you can have your bottle."
3. Read Aloud Regularly
Establishing a regular reading routine is one of the easiest ways to help a child develop language skills. When you read aloud to your kids, it not only gives them an opportunity to hear proper speech, but it also helps with comprehension. Children of all ages can benefit from being read to. Very young children will learn from the pictures in the books even when there are no written words, and older children can begin to associate written words with spoken works. Incorporating reading into a bedtime routine will help you stay consistent and it will also help your children to unwind and prepare for sleep.
4. Introduce and Reinforce New Vocabulary Words
As your child grows, you should introduce new vocabulary words constantly. Name the people and objects in their environment and reinforce the word associations repeatedly. Point to pictures of different objects in a picture book or people in a photo album and ask your child to name them. This will seem like a game to the child, one that will quickly increase his vocabulary. As the child gets older, progress to more complex words.
5. Use Songs and Nursery Rhymes
Teaching children to sing preschool songs like "Old MacDonald" or "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and to recite nursery rhymes like "Little Miss Muffet" can develop speech while you entertain them. Children's songs and nursery rhymes introduce new vocabulary and reinforce vocabulary in an engaging way.
