Children’s vocabulary grows when they participate in conversations and hear new words. Highlight new words by pairing the word with a gesture, repeating it, and explaining what it means. Here are some fun things to try in everyday situations.

Help develop children’s language by adding words and ideas to what they say. When you respond to what a child says by making their sentence more complete, or by adding a new idea, you model more advanced language that they can learn from. Here are some fun things to try.

The best interactions with children happen during conversations that naturally continue when you follow the child’s lead. To follow the child’s lead, make a comment or ask a question related to what they have communicated. Then pause to give them a chance to respond. Keep this going back and forth! Here are some fun ways to keep conversations going and build language with young children.

Follow the child’s lead means letting children start the conversation and then responding with interest to what they have said or communicated. When you wait (without speaking) to give children an opportunity to start a conversation, they may communicate with sounds, gestures or words. Child-led conversations motivate children to communicate, support their language development, and are associated with later academic success. Here are some fun things to try throughout the day.

The best way to build a child’s language is to have conversations whenever you’re together. Children who have more conversations with adults develop better language skills and are more successful at school. Here are some fun ideas for you to try.

Did you know that the way you share books with your child can make a big difference in how well they learn early literacy skills? Use this book reading checklist to take a closer look at how you’ve been sharing books with your child and what other things you might do to maximize your child's learning.