9 Strategies for Building Young Children’s Early Language Skills

Play games with vocabulary practice

Think of games that give multiple opportunities to learn and use words, in multiple playful settings. For example, say, “I’ve made a treasure hunt of words around the room. Let’s see who can find them first. Then, we’ll have a chance to talk. We’ll work those words into our sentences!” These games are more effective when you focus your vocabulary units around fun, high-interest themes.

Ask open-ended questions

Posing questions to young children is a great way to build early language skills. Start with simpler questions when children are very young (e.g., “What color is that?”), and then as they get a little older, ask questions that go beyond quizzing and really engage thinking and curiosity:

• “Why do you think your friend is crying? How can we help him feel better?”
• “Why do you think it gets dark at night?”
• “What do we need for our tea party?”
• “Who did you play with at child care today? What did you do together?”
• “How do you think we can make this toy go?”
• “That looks like some sort of seed pod. Where did you find it? Do you think it came from a tree?”

Use favorite stories and songs

Ask families to record favorite stories, rhymes, or songs for the whole class to learn together, or ask families or your local librarian for favorite books (storybooks or ones that label familiar objects). Remember that repetition of well-loved songs, stories, and rhymes is the very thing that makes them so good for language learning.

Try collaborative storytelling

Start by offering children basic storytelling elements, for example, PPP (person/people, place, and problem). You might start, for example, by saying, “There was a group of firefighters who got a call about a fire on a street. They went to the street (place) only to find that there weren’t any fire hydrants! (problem). What did they do after that?”

• You can then go around in a circle, asking each child to contribute a sentence or idea. Encourage children to complicate the story and search for solutions, for example by saying, “And then, this made the problem worse” or “And then, the character solved that problem by…”
• Also encourage children to discuss the consequences of actions. For example, say, “And that solution created a new problem…”
• Let children know that stories can be ongoing and can always be retold and revised.

Encourage speaking in complete sentences

Provide multiple oppor­tunities for children to use their language skills to describe, narrate, ask questions, and respond in complete sentences. Demonstrate how people change their voices and body language when asking a question or making a statement, and have children copy your model and role-play. Identify and use question words in oral language activities: who, what, when, how, why.

Strive for five turns

Children’s language skills are enriched and expanded when adults engage them in back-and-forth conversations that extend over multiple turns and encourage the child to play an active role. Dickinson & Morse use the phrase “strive for five” as a rule of thumb—that is, try to have a sequence of five back-and-forth exchanges with the child before the conversation ends.

Incorporate home languages

For children learning a different home language (including sign language), ask families to provide a list of common terms related to routines, and tips on pronunciation, if needed, so that you can incorporate them into your conversations during daily routines.

• Tips 1, 5, and 9 adapted from Early Language, part of the Quick Reference Guides for Early Childhood Best Practices series by Kathy L. Reschke
• Tips 2 and 7 adapted from Fundamentals of Literacy Instruction & Assessment, Pre-K–6, Second Edition, edited by Martha C. Hougen & Susan M. Smartt
• Tips 3 and 6 adapted from Rich Talk With Young Children by Rebecca Rolland
• Tip 4 adapted from ASQ^®:SE-2 Learning Activities by Elizabeth Twombly, Leslie Munson, and Lois Pribble
• Tip 8 adapted from Connecting Through Talk by David K. Dickinson & Ann B. Morse