Daily routines throughout the day like meals, getting dressed, and bath time are excellent opportunities for language learning since they occur naturally in your home. Since the goal is for a child to use functional language in their everyday environments, routines are great times to maximize language learning opportunities and practice skills from therapy sessions.
Daily routines provide a framework for targeting language at home. They take away the pressure of scheduling and planning extra language activities since those opportunities can occur during those routines. There is also no pressure to buy materials and toys since you have everything you need for those routine activities at home already! Routines are also great because they can incorporate your family’s cultures and values.
During routines, model the same words and phrases to help increase your child’s understanding and to increase opportunities for imitation and spontaneous communication.
Examples: Talk about what you are doing and what your child is doing.
Brushing teeth- Let’s brush teeth. Brush brush! Up, down. Left, right. Swish! Big smile! All clean.
Meals- Time to eat! I’m hungry. Want a spoon or fork? Pour juice. My cup. Yummy! Clean up.
Getting dressed- Let’s get ready! It’s hot today. One sock, two sock. Left arm, right arm. Pink hat or yellow hat? Zip up! Help me button. I’m ready!
Bath time- Turn on water. It’s cold! Splash! Squeeze! Wash hair. Get towel. All dry! I’m clean!
Reading and play time- Let’s read a book! Turn page. Which toy-blocks or animals?
Bed time- Time to sleep. Sing a song. Hug. Close your eyes. I love you. Good night!
For more strategies and ideas to support your child’s speech and language at home, download our handouts!
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