How to Play with Cars to Maximize Language Development

Did you know that something as simple as a Hot Wheels car or a Little People Truck can supercharge your child’s language?

What exactly can you do with cars to maximize language development?

1. TURNS

Playing with cars is a great way to train turn taking, starting from age 2, all the way to early elementary school age. And turn taking is important because it builds joint attention skills, and it is a foundation for social language, or pragmatics skills.

When your child does something with her car, copy her. If she makes the car go on a wall, you do the same. If she makes it fall, you do the same.

With time, she will take the hint – and she will start copying what you do. And copying actions is just one step away from trying to copy your language, and thereby increase the complexity of what she says.

2. SOUNDS

Playing with cars is a great way to get in sound effects – which is a great way to exercise a great number of sounds. For toddlers, you can teach car noises, just like animal noises, as bridges to real words. “Vroom” and “zoom” are great places to start.

For older children, you can refer to a milestone chart and see what sounds are expected of them. If your child’s /s/ sound seems a little delayed, use words to describe the car’s motion. “Of thissssss car is fasssssst.”

3. ING VERBS

Ing verbs like walking, talking, singing, etc. are the first more complex grammar forms that a child develops.

When a 2 year old is making a transition to 2-word phrases, ing words can really help to bridge that gap from 1 word to 2 words in each utterance. You can play cars and say things like “driving” or “stopping” or falling”, over and over again, so your child can pick up on the form, and start repeating it himself.

For older children (3-4 years old), ing verbs are also a great foundation for simple sentences. For these children, repeating “The car is driving” or “the girl is sitting in the car” are great ways to teach simple, and sometimes just a little more complex, sentences.

4. PREPOSITIONS

The great thing about cars is that they move. This means they are perfect tools in teaching your child prepositions.

At around age 2, you can teach “in” or “on” – again, through lots of repetition. Small phrases are your best bet. For example, “on the table” or “in the box.”

For older children, especially around preschool age, you can start to add more complex prepositions. For example, you can add “on top”, “under”, “above”, “below”, “next to”, “behind” “in front of” or maybe even “in between.”

You can just narrate where the car is going, and add prepositions.

Or, to make it a little more fun, play hide and seek. Hide the car, and have your child find it.

5. DESCRIPTION

We tend to focus a lot on nouns and verbs when teaching children language. This makes sense, because these are the forms that occur the most often, and they are the most simple.

But adjectives and adverbs have their place in a child’s vocabulary, especially at around the 3 year old mark. And you can use cars to teach some describing words. For best results, use sets of cars

Start with yes/ no questions. “Is the car small or big? Is it fast or slow? Is it hard or soft?”

Once your child gets the hang of yes / no questions, you can add in a comprehension component. “Sarah, can you give me the small car please?”

And as the child approaches 5, you can add multiple adjectives. “I am looking for the soft blue car… it’s fast. Which one is it?” If you teach adjectives, you are giving your child the foundation to further expand her vocabulary.

6. STEPS

Speech-language pathologists often encourage parents to narrate what their children do while playing with them. This is a great practice, because it is building a child’s “language database” so the child can eventually make his / her own phrases and sentences. And, as always, the more repetition, the better.

However, you can actually boost your child’s cognition by inserting another element into your narration : steps or sequencing.

Sequencing is an important executive functioning skill. And it helps push children to talk more, and with longer utterances.

You can correspond the number of steps that you narrate with your child’s age.

So, 2 steps for a 2 year old, 3 steps for a 3 year old, 4 steps for a 4 year old, etc.

For a 2 year old, you can say. “First drive. Then fall.” (2 steps, ,2 words each step)

For a 3 year old, you can say. “First we drive. Then we stop. Then we fall.” (3 steps, 3 words each step.) For a 4 year old, you can say “First we get gas. Then we drive here. Then we turn back.”

“First”, “then”, and “later” are great transition words, that later on help storytelling and reading comprehension

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So there you have it. Six easy lessons so you can “trick” your child into learning the next time you play together.

Have fun racing!

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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.