A very important question to ask your toddler / preschooler everyday

One of the very important skills that a toddler / preschooler can have is being able to recap what just happened. "We did homework" or "we went to the playground" or "we drew a flower" are very simple sentences, and they happen pretty frequently in our schedule driven days.

But - a really great skill for a toddler / preschooler is to be able to say "what happened" or "what did we do" all by themselves.

And, when doing that, it's really good practice to hone in on past tense. If it is incorrect, you can merely praise and shape to the correct production. If a child says "we readed", all we have to do is say, "you are right! we read!"

Here are some great ways to practice answering "what happened. "

1. Recap what happened after a page in a book. "Oh that was fun! What happened? (pause, see if you get an answer. If not, model) - He ran away!")

2. Recap what happened in school / day care / play date - "What did you do today? (pause, see if you get an answer. If not, model) - Looks like you drew a picture"

3. Recap what happened in an arts / crafts activity - "What did we just do to make this? (pause, see if you get an answer. If not, model) - We baked something very yummy"

And - if you want to practice some irregular past tense (it's "ate" not "eated"!) - check out this irregular past tense practice / "what did we do" worksheet on Smarter Speech's TPT store!

Happy Talking!

Disclaimer : Smarter Speech is a pediatric speech therapy / speech-language pathology practice for toddlers and children providing in-home and teletherapy services in and around Mountain View, CA and Los Gatos, CA. Smarter Speech Blog aims to provide free speech and language tips for parents educators and therapists. However, this post is not providing speech-language pathology services. This is general information, not speech -language pathology or speech therapy. This article does not assume or create a client – SLP relationship. The author is not liable for any losses or damages due to actions or failure to act based on the content in this article. If you need assistance with a child’s speech or language needs, please contact a speech-language pathologist in your area.