Resources, videos and activities to boost your child’s communication and language at home.
How to Support your Child’s Early Communication and Language
Tips and activities by age group
The National Literacy Trust’s ‘Words for Life’ website groups activities and resources by age.
Online workshop on how to support your child’s social communication
This NHS webpage includes an early Interaction workshop on how to support your child’s interaction skills.
Help your child to be a super communicator
The ‘Talking Together’ booklet explains how everyday chats, games and routines can help your child learn to talk and understand from a very early age.
Simple communication and language games to play with children under the age of 5
This video from the BBC explains how spending face-to-face time with babies and young children helps them to learn language and connect with you through eye contact, facial expressions and mouth movements.
Help your child to focus on and take part in a conversation
This video from the BBC shows how noticing and talking about your child’s favourite toys and interests helps them to listen and learn.
Help your child to say longer sentences
This video from the BBC explains how responding to your child’s early words and building short phrases around them helps them to make longer sentences.
Help your child if they say words or phrases incorrectly
This video from the BBC shows you how “recasting” – repeating a child’s phrase back to them correctly rather than pointing out mistakes – helps them learn words and sentences more naturally.
Find out about Makaton
Makaton is a way to help people communicate using talking, hand signs, and pictures. It is made for children and adults who find speaking hard, including those with learning difficulties, autism, or speech problems. Visit the Makaton website for more information.
How to Support your Child’s Speech Sounds
Learn more about speech sounds
This page from Speech and Language UK offers families clear information about speech sounds — how children learn them, when sounds typically develop and simple ways you can help improve your child’s pronunciation at home.
When your child says words that are almost right but not quite there
This video from the BBC explains ‘recasting’, a way to subtly correct words with your child to show the correct way to say them.
How to Support your Bilingual Child
Speaking additional languages at an early age
This article from the BBC explores the benefits of speaking more than one language with toddlers and gives some top tips for talking more than one language as a family.
How to develop language in a bilingual household
In this video from the BBC, a Speech and language therapist explains why it’s best to speak in whichever languages you’re most comfortable with at home.
How to Support your Child’s Selective Mutism
Find out more about selective mutism
This video from the NHS gives an introduction to selective mutism, including how to recognise it, why it can occur and strategies to use.