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Receptive Language is the ability to process, understand, and store language. And, it is an important foundation for how much a child is able to understand in the classroom, as well as how a child formulates his / her own sentences.
Working on following directions is a great way to boost language in preschool and in kindergarten. Especially 1-2 step directions with a few adjectives. The problem is, how do you work on following directions, when young children might be averse to following too many directions... just in general?
Well, you practice in play! Here are some ideas on how to make your child process, understand and store more language more accurately.
ONE - Baking - real or pretend
Baking is a great way to work on following directions! You can incorporate prepositions like in, on, under, and even some concepts like first, next, and last. Read out the recipe, and guide your child through following the recipe. And, for extra practice, make the same food 2 or 3 days in a row.
TWO - Blocks / Legos
A great way to trick your child into following directions is to try to make some sort of lego and block structure together. You can look at the "model" / "demo" for reference, and then try to replicate it. Break the replication into relevant steps. For example, "First, we put the blue block at the bottom. Then, we put the red block in the middle. Last, the green triangle goes on the side." That's a lot of receptive language in one go! Try to finish just one model a session, and know you have done a lot of great language modeling.
THREE - Coloring
There are two ways to work on directions with coloring. You could either buy a "color by number" workbook, and narrate the steps for your child to follow. "It says here that you color the top of his hat - here - blue. Then, you color the bottom of the hat - here- red!"
Or, like with the block activity above, you can print a reference picture first and try to match it. For example, "it looks like Elsa's dress is blue. So let's start with coloring the dress blue!"
FOUR - More Worksheets!
And finally, check out the following worksheets by Smarter Speech SLP on TpT for more unique following directions practice for Grades K-2!
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.
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