Strategies to support the language development of school aged children

Below are some strategies for children with more language.

• Slow down your rate of talking
• Pause after you have commented or asked a question to give your child time to think and respond
• Break instructions or information down into smaller chunks
• Give instructions in chronological order, for examples. ‘first you need to… then … last …’
• Use familiar words or link a complex word such as ‘dissolve’ to a familiar word such as ‘mix’
• Clap out new tricky words, for example, pho-to-syn-the-sis
• Use visual supports to reduce memory demands for example, question cards, vocabulary mats, story frame planners, problem solving frames
• Check understanding by saying “tell me what you have to do?”. If you ask “do you understand?” they will probably say yes, even if they don’t.
• Avoid broad open questions such as ‘what happened?’ instead use specific questions such as who was there? where were you? when did it happen? what did you do? what did they do? what did you say? what did they say? how did you feel? how did they feel? what happened next?
• Repeat back what you have heard so that the child can focus on thinking of the next part, for example, “so you knocked on the headteacher’s door…”
• Avoid complex grammar such as conditional questions, for example “if you knew that you weren’t allowed to go in the science room, why did I find you in there?”
• Repeat back and emphasise correct grammar when you notice an error, for example, “first I caughted the ball”, adult: ‘ah so first you caught the ball…’
• Avoid language that requires the child to ‘read between the lines’ and instead say exactly what you mean for example, say “you’ve got lots of energy today”, instead of “you’re full of beans”, and “walk please” instead of “don’t run”.

Whole setting interventions that are run in schools include Word Aware which is an evidence-based approach that promotes children’s vocabulary development. It is also beneficial for children learning English as an additional language.

See advice for children learning English as an additional language