How to teach preschoolers and toddlers to speak well

Effective communication is one of the most important life skills anyone can have. There are many people who have excellent academic qualifications but if they have not learnt how to express themselves in a creative and interesting way, will lose out in many ways to others who do not equal their academic qualifications but have learnt how to communicate effectively through spoken language and how to co-operate and build positive interpersonal relationships with others.

Parents can provide opportunities for their preschoolers and toddlers to become effective communicators when they understand the different types of oral communication. Listening and speaking are the basis for language development and are as important as completing their written activities or perfecting neat handwriting.

1. Provide an environment to encourage them to express themselves.
   Effective communication is when parents learn how to allow their children to express their own thoughts and ideas freely. Have a warm and supportive home environment where they can learn to express themselves without the fear of criticism or judgment. Help them understand that making mistakes is a necessary and an expected part of learning.
2. Set aside some time to listen to your preschoolers and toddlers.
   Listen empathically by encouraging them to explain and defend their viewpoints while at the same time listening to yours. Parents should try not to interrupt while they are speaking or finish off their sentences for them. Be patient with them as they might take a little longer to express their thoughts as they are still learning to put them into words and interrupting them will not help but will impede fluency and make them less confident.
3. Parents can forge close bonding with them by reading their favorite story books or watching movies together.  Encourage them to express their own thoughts, feelings or viewpoints on the characters in the stories or movies by asking them open-ended questions. Show them that you value their individual differences of thought and opinion and encourage them to be original and creative in self-expression.
4. Organize activities for your preschoolers and toddlers that will invite them to explore and manipulate ideas and think “out of the box”.
   Have gardening, drawing or cooking activities together to provide them interesting life experiences as this can help to broaden their vocabulary and the more diverse these experiences are, the wider their vocabulary will become for them to be able to express themselves accurately and succinctly.
5. Encourage them to describe things accurately.
   When they answer your question with an “okay’ or “all right”, ask them what they mean by that. Do they mean “funny’, “entertaining” or “interesting”? Using precise words is important for accurate and unambiguous communication.
6. Develop strong reporting skills by allowing your preschoolers and toddlers to tell you about their present and past experiences. Encourage them to reflect on these experiences by asking them to describe how they felt or how would they have reacted if it happens again and compare them with other experiences they have had.
7. Reasoning skill is another important oral skill for them to inculcate. Training them on how to explain processes, articulate problems and suggesting solutions and opinions can kick-start their creative thinking to come up with a whole range of brilliant and imaginative ideas. Using their imagination is one way of thinking that leads to having great ideas.

Preschoolers and toddlers need time, opportunity and encouragement to develop these life skills and they learn best by ‘having a go” when they have nothing to fear or be anxious about and all their intelligence and creativity is employed to the full. This is the natural way to learn.

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Tags: brain teasers for kids, preschool worksheets, preschoolers and toddlers

Simple and Fun Brain teasers for kids

Brain teasers for kids can come in many forms. Encouraging them to play with puzzles develops their cognitive thinking skills. Riddles encourage them to think in unconventional ways with given constraints in mind.

1. Memory Brain Games
   These games challenge their memory, concentration and observation skills.
   Place a few picture cards and let the kids remember the cards for a period of time. Close the cards and ask them to remember the picture cards. The number of cards and the time will depend on the ability level of the kids. Another extension of this game is to take away one card and ask them which picture card is missing.
   
   
2. Visual brain teasers for kids
   These games develop visualization skill. Depending on the ability of the kids, have a puzzle set of 10 to 20 pieces. Take out several pieces and ask the kids to fit in the missing pieces.
   Another classical game is to spot the differences between 2 identical pictures but several items are missing from one of the pictures.
   
   
3. Sensory learning games
   These games develop their sensory and imaginary skills.
   This game develops their sense of touch. Show several toys to the kids. Let them touch, hold and explore the toys. It is best when the toys have different shapes and textures like smooth, rough, furry and leathery surfaces. Put the toys in a cloth bag.
   The kids have to put their hand inside the bag to guess what the toy is by feeling it. Encourage them to describe what they are touching.
   Another great game to improve their sense of sight is to describe an item in a room and ask the kids to find it.

4. Language brain teasers for kids
   These games develop literacy skills as the kids need to think about and manipulate words and letters.
   Write the kids names on the board and ask them to create words using the letters in their names. An example, Sara, John and Peter – the kids can create words like ran, hen, near or tear. Another fun game to practice spelling and vocabulary skills is playing the classical crossword puzzle. The kids will get fulfillment when they are guided initially so that they understand what they have to do to fill up the empty grid boxes.

5. Logic brain teasers for kids
   Riddles develop problem-solving skills as it trains the kids to see how making relationships between bits of information can help them solution-find and they engage the kids in a great deal of thinking activity.

When kids receive stimulation through positive interactions with caring adults during their early years, connections between neurons and synapses are formed as they learn and when appropriate brain teasers for kids are used, they are given the opportunity to develop their thinking and use their ability to question and reason when they learn and all these are important features of great thinkers.

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Tags: brain teasers and puzzles, brain teasers for kids, preschoolers and toddlers