In Nursery we are continually monitoring every child's developing understanding and use of language.  We have a very useful toolkit, 'Wellcomm', which we use to support any aspects of a child's receptive and expressive language that might need extra input. Below we will give some ideas for you and your child to practise to ensure their understanding continues to develop apace!

The meaning of 'why'

Why questions help to develop causal relations, which is when something happened because of something else (or so my book says anyway!)

The examples linked below do not need to be printed but can be used on screen or even just to give you examples of the types of why questions you could be asking when you read stories together.

Same or Different

This is such an important concept for your child to understand.  It is very worth while encouraging your child to use the vocabulary whenever you find yourselves in a game or situation that supports it.

The 'Which one doesn't belong?' activity in particular might need some support to both understand the task and in trying to find the vocabulary to explain their thinking.

Negatives

Ask your child questions using negatives occasionally.  

For example, when playing with toy farm animals arrange all but one around a hay bale or trough and ask which animal isn't eating? Which doll isn't sleeping? Who has no cup? Which has no bed?

Concepts

No need to print any of these sheets. Hopefully your child will be able to confidently point to the correct picture for each question. If you do find some vocabulary that your child is not familiar with (fewer, for example) then simply make sure you use it when applicable in play activities.

Concepts in Everyday Life

Obviously the park and shopping examples are unfortunately not terribly useful at present but hopefully it gives you an insight into the huge value of the way we narrate everyday life to our small children (even if it does get you some funny looks out and about!!)

First and Last

First and Last are concepts of time: they refer to something happening before or after something else. They are also significant order concepts in Numeracy.

Easy to check your child's understanding of which/who is first and which/who is last during play activities - a queue of cars or cuddly toys or during a race of wind up toys.

Prepositions - in, on, under, next to, between, behind, in front of...

Used to describe the placement of people or objects we use them regularly but sometimes a child's understanding of prepositions

• Ask your child to put a cuddly toy somewhere in the room - 'Put Spiderman on the chair/behind the cushion' etc.
• If they can do this then you put the toy somewhere and ask, 'Where is the teddy?'. If they reply with a few words then repeat their answer back to them in a full sentence.

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Thinking Skills

More activities to support Thinking Skills.  Please modify the tasks as much as necessary to enable your child to access and enjoy them.