Nine ways to help your child learn to communicate better

The National Education Association President Reg Weaver tells us, “We know that attempting to repair reading skills in the fourth grade is far more expensive and risky than guaranteeing pre-reading skills in preschool and good beginning reading skills in kindergarten.”

Therefore we must invest our time, energy and resources early in life to insure fundamental language skills are created in every child. When children speak and listen, they are taking their first steps towards reading and writing. As children hear you talk and talk with others, they learn about people, places, and things that they will later read and write about. We know what young children understand about the world through their oral vocabulary. Your child will be able to communicate well if you invest early in the following types of activities:

Spend as much time as possible talking with your child each day. Infants love to hear your voice as they try to figure out the patterns in your speech. The more opportunities you model good speech and vocabulary (not baby talk) the wiser your little one will be.

• Teach your child to listen and reply to others when they talk.


• After age three, begin to teach conversational skills where you try to keep your little one on topic and an active participant in dialogue for at least three minutes.


• Always answer your child’s questions.


• Encourage your child to ask questions and help him find the answers when he gets older.


• Help your child understand and use new words. Label everything you see with its word – begin this at birth.


• Help your child learn new ideas by singing and rhyming together.


• Avoid baby talk and generalized vocabulary as baby grows older– i.e., after the baby learns the word “truck” begin labeling it with its more specific name, “Ford truck”


• Write notes to your child.


• Help your child say what she want in letters or emails to others.