Children learn about their world through play. Playing creates a stress-free environment where children can interact and practice their speech and language skills as well as building their vocabulary and creating wonderful opportunities for imitation and engagement. Play is also proven to improve socio-emotional, physical, language and cognitive development in children. Play is one of the core building blocks of language and that is why it is such an important part of a child’s development. The more types of play children are exposed to, the more language and ultimately learning they are exposed to. Children learn by doing. When children play and if language is modelled to them, this creates a link in their brain between the action they are doing and the word that goes with that action. The more they hear the word, they will begin to associate that word with the action, and eventually use it for themselves. 

Play should be taught by adults modelling it, using a range of toys. A study by Barton et al (2020) concluded that there was evidence to show correlation between adults modelling different types of play and children’s language development. 

There are different stages of play that children will move through chronologically. For some children this happens naturally, for others they may require a little support to develop through the stages. 

As children grow, their play skills change, opening the door to even more learning and experiences. 

Parents are a child’s best teacher. In the average week, parents will spend more time with their children than teachers or other professionals will, therefore they are the most influential person in their child’s life. 

Playing together is not only fun, it shows your child that you are interested in them and in what they are doing. You can model so much language to them through play and really enjoy the interaction together. The earliest building blocks of language include eye contact, taking turns, pointing, using gestures and making vocalisations, all of which happen when we play! 

Children’s minds are naturally very inquisitive. By opening up their minds to the world of play, the opportunities are absolutely endless and interactions become so powerful. They can explore the world around them through their senses, with adults modelling the language that is attached to their actions. 

As I often tell my clients, it’s not about the toy itself – it’s about how you use it. A few basic essentials that are always in my play toolkit include, a toy farm to work on animal sounds, simple actions and following instructions; some blocks to spark imaginative building; cars on a track to work on back and forth interactions and language such as “ready, steady, go!”; pop-up pirate for turn taking and bubbles for working on exclamatory words such as “wow!”, building anticipation and engagement, and eye contact.