Board games such as “Outburst Junior”, “Apples to Apples Jr”, “Tri-Bond”, “Scattergories”, and “Twenty-Five Words or Less”, help increase vocabulary, understanding of categories and word retrieval skills.
Games such as “Guess Who” and “20 Questions” aid in verbal reasoning and provide practice in asking appropriate questions. “20 Questions” also challenges auditory memory skills.
Following recipes or steps to a craft project can improve sequencing and language comprehension skills. Having your child teach a parent or sibling a recipe, rules to a game or steps to a craft project can aid in expressive language skills and sequencing.
Play “barrier games” together. Two people are seated across from each other with some type of visual barrier between them. One person creates something (e.g. a picture using a dot matrix, an easy paper folding activity, a route on a map) and must give exact instructions so that the other person can recreate the same thing without looking over the barrier. These games aid in using precise and clear expressive language skills as well as language comprehension skills.
Tell stories using story starters (for example, “Jane sat down to breakfast as usual, but when she opened the cereal box something very strange happened”) or story telling picture cards. Picture cards can include any pictures of potential characters, places and objects. The story-teller chooses pictures from each category at random and has to make up a story using these pictures. Others can “add on” to the story with new cards.
Make predictions about a story or chapter of a book you read to or with your child. Discuss what you think the book is about or what you think will happen next. As you begin reading, discuss whether your predictions were right. After reading a story or chapter of a book to or with your child, talk about the key parts of the story. Who are the main characters? Where and when does the story take place? What problems do the characters have to overcome? What do they plan to do? How do they finally solve the problem?
Discuss short informational paragraphs read to or with your child. What is the main idea of the paragraph? What are the details?
Use verbal problem-solving skills to discuss situations that may come up in your child’s life. What would they say or do? The Kids’ Book of Questions by Gregory Stock has a wide variety of questions and situations.
