5 tips for boosting language at bath time
Treetop Therapy provides us with some tips on how to boost our children’s language during that daily bath time.
1) Try to be face to face with your child at eye level.
2) Follow their lead – Talk about what they are doing, looking at, pointing to or playing with.
3) Wait and listen to what they have to say. This gives them an opportunity to communicate.
4) Repetitive songs and games – These make it easier for your child to predict what will be said next and join in. Once they are familiar with the verbal routine in the game or song, pause and look at them expectantly to fill the blank. Use a simple, repetitive bath song
Alternatively, you can learn some other nursery rhymes on Spotify (spotify4kids channel has a playlist for 0-3-year-olds called “bathtime”) or the YouTube channel “Pinkfong”.
5) Introduce a variety of vocabulary – names of objects (bubbles, water, soap, shampoo, boat, etc), action words (wash, dry, splash, pour, etc), location words (in, on, etc), and describing words (wet, dirty, clean, etc)
Examples of bath-time activities
Rubber duck play:
You can sing the nursery rhyme “5 little ducks” while playing rubber ducks with your child.
You could have the duck “jump” then “splash” in the water.
You can “wash” the duck.
The duck can “swim” and say “quack quack”. He could swim “fast” or “slow”.
Describe the duck as “wet” “yellow” “dirty” or “small”
Boat play:
You can sing the nursery rhyme “row row row your boat” while playing boats with your child
The boat could “float” or “fall” in the water
You can make the “beep” noise while you or your child sail the boat
The boat can “stop” and “go”
Toys can go “in” and “out” of the boat
