Find out things you, your partner and family can do, to help grow your child’s language and communication skills
On this page
- What your child can do
- How can you help
- What you can do
- What to do if you need advice
- Start Talking together leaflet
What your child can do
At 4 to 5 years, your child can
- Use lots and lots of words – about 1000!
- Seek out friends to play with
- Understand words that describe things, like ‘hot’ and ‘cold’, ‘long’ and ‘short’
- Use linking words in my sentences, for ex., ‘and’, ‘then’
- Understand language that relates to time e.g., ‘yesterday’, ‘tomorrow’
- Use basic grammar correctly but still make mistakes e.g., 'Mummy, I goed to the park’
- Need less and less adult help to shift attention from a game to someone speaking and back again
- Use lots of speech sounds correctly but still find ‘th’, ‘r’, ‘ch’, ‘j’ and ‘l’ hard
Language for life
Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust provides advice for parents, families and professionals in Nottinghamshire to help children learn to talk and communicate. You can find information on things you can do to support your child's speaking and listening skills, support services that are available and resources for professionals at Language for Life (Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust)
Language development in the primary years steadily builds on the solid foundations that are established during the early years. Children’s attention, listening, understanding, vocabulary, speech, grammar, storytelling and conversations all develop further in terms of skills, knowledge and complexity.
This poster describes the stages of typical language development, with examples of what you might see and hear in a classroom or school environment.
Language for Life The stages of a typical language development in primary years [PDF]
How can you help
Family Hubs
Nottinghamshire Family Hubs are great places for families with young children, offering lots of support and Stay and Play sessions which are open to everyone, making them a great place for you and your pre-school child to make new friends.
Contact your local Family Hub:
Find your nearest Family Hub (Nottinghamshire County Council)
Early Learning and Childcare
All 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 Finding Childcare (Your Notts Directory)
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:
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 parenting hub
Find ideas for children aged 3 to 5 years on Learning conversations and telling stories (Best Start in Life)
CBeebies Parenting activities
Discover some activities to help with early communication and listening skills:
Activities for 4 to 5 years (CBeebies Parenting)
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.
Talking to your child about culture
As your child grows up, they may have questions about their own heritage, culture or that of their friends. Family Lives have created a resource that covers the importance of culture, staying culturally connected, being bilingual sharing experiences. It links to other resources for further reading on the subject.
To find out more, go to Talking to your child about culture (Family Lives)
Learn how to stay culturally connected in this 3-minute video produced by Parent Channel TV.
What to do if you need 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.
Your GP
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]