Start Talking Together: 3-4 years

Find out things you, your partner and family can do, to help grow your child’s language and communication skills

What your child can do

At 3 to 4 years, your child can

Use about 500 to 700 words
Enjoy make-believe play, for example, dressing-up
Follow longer instructions with three keywords for example, ‘find the cup and put it in Kim’s bag’
Use sentences of around 4 or more words
Use little grammar words like ‘I, me, a, the,’ and putting ‘ed’ endings on doing words for example, ‘We walked’ but will use immature grammar sometimes for example, ‘shutted’
Talk about things that happened in the past and what might happen in the future
Ask lots of ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘why’ questions

Language for life

Language for Life Talking Together, Ages and Stages booklets from Nottinghamshire Healthcare trust can help you to understand what stage your child is at in their development.

Language for Life Talking Together 3 years and chatting away [PDF]

Language for Life Talking Together I'm coming up to 4 years old [PDF]

Further booklets can be found at Language for Life - Look what I can do (NHS)

Speaking more than one language

If you speak more than one language at home, it's important to talk to your child in the language, or languages, you feel most confident speaking.

Children who speak more than one language babble and say their first words in the same way as children learning one language, but some may do it slightly later. It is important not to confuse this slight delay with language difficulties – most children quickly catch up.

Notts Healthcare Trust have useful information about bilingualism. They have produced the Language for Life Talking Together, Maintaining Your Child’s First Language booklet in English, Polish, Arabic, Romanian and Urdu

To find out more, visit Bilingualism (NHS Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust)

How can you help

Family Hubs

Nottinghamshire Family Hubs are great places for families with new babies, offering lots of support, such as the under ones stay and play session which is open to everyone, so they’re an excellent place for you to meet other families with young babies in your local area and make friends.

We also have

New Parents groups
Baby Massage Sessions
Baby Little Talkers groups
BABES support groups for mums who choose to breastfeed their babies
Baby Incredible Years groups
PHEW groups (Parent Health & Emotional Wellbeing)
PEEP Groups What is PEEP? Two Minute Guide (People Learning Together YouTube video)

Contact your local Family Hub:

Find your nearest Family Hub (Nottinghamshire County Council)

Family Hubs Get Talking

Nottinghamshire Family Hubs have produced a little booklet which provides some simple suggestions for parents on how to support your child's speech and language development in the early years. With helpful sentence starters and other ideas to use at different ages of their development.

Download the Get Talking Booklet (Nottinghamshire Family Hubs) [PDF]

Get Talking!

Speech, language, and communication are a vital part of your child’s early development. The skills they learn now will help them throughout their lives being able to hold conversations, communicate basic needs, feelings, thinking, problem-solving, building relationships and so much more.

Chances are, you might be supporting your child’s language skills without even realising. Singing songs, reading, and telling stories that have rhythm and repetition can all help your child to learn and remember words.

If you speak more than one language at home, then talk with your child in the language that you feel most confident using.

Hit the pause button

Children need time to process what is being asked of them. It can sometimes take your child up to 10 seconds to hear what you are saying, to process it, to let their brain put the words in order, and think about how to sound the words out to reply to you. When you ask a question or make a comment while you are playing and chatting together, try hitting that imaginary pause button and count to 10 in your head before saying anything else.

Helping our children develop their language skills shouldn’t feel like we are always questioning and testing them to find out what they know. Point things out while you are out and about and while you are doing those routine, everyday jobs. Make comments that get your child thinking…

'hmm, I wonder what that could be for…' and 'what do you think?'

As their confidence and skills grow, you might find yourself being led on a wonderfully fantastical journey of imagination, story-telling, and lateral thinking.

You could try some of these sentence starters when you are talking and playing together. They will help your child to stretch their thinking, to problem-solve, to make predictions and to evaluate. Enjoy being carried along as the conversation takes all kinds of directions through their thoughts and logic. And don’t forget to hit that pause button

What do you think would happen if…?
What do you think will happen next?
What can you tell me about…?
Tell me more about…
Can you think of another way?
What could you do or use instead?
What else could it be used for?
I wonder why…

The Department of Education has produced a guide for parents which covers the seven areas of learning and development in a child's early years.

To read the guide in full visit What to expect in the Early Years Foundation stage, A guide for parents (The Department of Education)

Here are a few other ideas taken from it:

Birth to 3 years old

Sing songs and rhymes while changing nappies and during other everyday activities
As your child picks up things to explore, say the name of the object
Repeat and build on what your child says by adding one or two words
Give 10 seconds to allow your child time to process, understand and think of a reply

3 – 4 year olds

Use your body language. Encourage your child to talk by nodding, smiling, and making comments
Introduce new words while doing everyday jobs, when you are playing together, at mealtimes, or while you are out and about
Talk about things that have already happened, and what might happen soon
Play listening games like ‘Simon Says...’

4 – 5 year olds

Treasure hunts - give your child instructions, directions, or clues that they have to listen carefully to.
Talk out loud about what you are doing and what your child is doing

Early Learning and Childcare

Did you know that going to a high quality early years setting gives your child a head start at school? In Nottinghamshire, 81% of nurseries, pre-schools and childminders are rated by Ofsted as Good or Outstanding!

All 3 and 4 year olds are eligible for up to 15 hours per week (term time only) and for working families up to 30 hours per week (term time only). To find out more, go to Help with Childcare Costs.

You can find an early years setting near you in our Families Information Service Directory, were you can find details of childminders, pre-schools, day nurseries and school nurseries who offer places for funded hours. To find out more, go to Find Childcare

What you can do

There are lots of opportunities in the community and at home to help your baby's language development. Here are a few ideas that are low cost, no cost to try.

Inspire Libraries

Our friends at Inspire have lots of family learning and activity sessions, which are a great way to support your little one’s speech, language and communication.

Rattle, Rhyme and Roll sessions for babies and toddlers are held at many libraries. These free sessions last about 30 minutes. Find your closest Rattle, Rhyme and Roll sessions (Inspire Libraries)

Story Hullaballoo sessions are for children under the age of five and include stories, songs and rhymes. These free sessions last about 30 minutes. Find your closet Story Hullaballoo sessions (Inspire Libraries)

To find out about other family learning sessions Inspire offers, go to Children and Families - (Inspire Libraries)

A Bookstart pack, is available from your Healthy Families Team practitioner (health visitor) or when you register as a library member with Inspire Libraries.

Children aged 0 – 5 with additional needs can receive a second Bookstart pack as well.

Visit Bookstart Packs (Inspire Culture, Learning, Libraries)

BookTrust

BookTrust is the charity behind Bookstart, they have lots of ideas for fun things to do as a family.

Visit: Supporting Parents, Carers and Families (BookTrust)

Words for Life

The National Literacy Trust have fun activities for one to two years old to help practise language and communication skills on their Activities for 3-4 years (Words for Life)

The National Literacy Trust has produced a Chat, Play, Read Activity Booklet free to download. Filled with fun and simple activities to support your child to learn new words and develop their language and communication skills. It is also available in different languages.

Find out more and download Chat, Play, Read activity booklet (Words for Life)

Speech and Language UK

The children’s communication charity Speech and Language UK provide support to parents and carers, and practitioners in helping children develop their speech, language and communication skills. Use their online Progress Checker to see how your child is getting on with their speech, language and communication development.

Find this and more free resources and services on their Help for families webpage

Best Start in Life

Find ideas for children aged 3 to 5 years on Learning conversations and better stories (Best Start in Life)

CBeebies Parenting

Discover some activities to help with early communication and listening skills:

Things to do at Home

We've gathered together more ideas on communicating with your baby, and activities you can try at home on our Things to do at home: 3 to 5 years old page.

What to do if you need advice

From around 4 years your child may

be using sentences of four to six words – “I want to play with cars” or “What’s that thing called?”
use sentences joined up with words like ‘because’, ‘or’, ‘and’? For example, “I like ice cream because it makes my tongue shiver”.
using future and past tense: “I am going to the park” and “I went to the shop”?
answer ‘why’ questions?

Source: Development Matters 2021

Where to get advice

If your child goes to a childminder, pre-school playgroup or day nursery, do speak to your child’s key worker. They may well have noticed that your child needs some help with communication and will have some ideas of things that will help.

If you feel your child is not responding to sound or to your voice, please contact one of the below services.

Nottinghamshire's Healthy Family Team

Telephone: 0300 123 5436
Find out more, go to Healthy Family Teams (Directory Listing)

Nottinghamshire Healthcare Speech and Language Advice Line

For parents and carers of children aged 0 to 19 years and for young people aged 16 to 19.

Call: 0300 123 3387 OPTION 1

Nottinghamshire and Nottingham City (except Bassetlaw)
Monday and Tuesday 9.30am to 4.30pm
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 9am to 12.30pm

Talking and communication drop ins

Come along to one of our early years drop-in sessions for children under 4 years old if you'd like to talk with us about your child's talking and communication.

No need to book! Just pick a date and come along with your child at any time during the session.

Visit Speech, Language and Communication Early Years Parents and Carers Drop In sessions (Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust)

Your GP

Find a GP - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

Start Talking together leaflet

Our Start Talking together leaflet give lots of top tips on how you and your family can help develop your little one’s talking. We hope you find it useful.

Download the Start Talking together leaflet [PDF]