Beginning to understand more words

Speech and language therapy

﻿Hello everybody. My name's Emma and welcome to today's lesson. I'm looking forward to today's session and I hope you are too. I can't wait to get started, but before we do just a quick reminder, we here at Oak, are here to support any approaches you might already be using and any work you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure or have any questions, please do contact your child's school or usual speech and language therapy team. In today's session, we're going to be talking a little bit more about the types of words that we need to know. Together we'll do some thinking about how words help you. And then we're going to have a go at following some simple instructions. Throughout the activities, I'm going to be sharing some tips for your adults so that they can really help you to develop your ability to understand language. So for today's session, all you'll need is some toys. Adults you'll need some writing equipment and the downloadable resource, it's available on the Oak website with this lesson. So before we begin, find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for the lesson, turn off any distractions or notifications that you might have running on your device, and then make sure that you and your adult, are both seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's begin. Okay, let's start by doing some talking and thinking about understanding more early words. Children need to learn all kinds of words in order to understand language. Children learn words by hearing them lots of times in different contexts. And they need adults to model language in order to develop their understanding. Modelling language works best when it's a multisensory. That means words, signs, gestures, symbols, and more to really bring the words to life. In lesson five, we talked about early nouns, naming words. In today's session, we're going to be talking about early verbs. Verbs are doing words or action words. Verbs are a little harder than nouns for children to learn because they're not as concrete. They're about an action rather than an object. Verbs are very important for language development though, because they allow the child to start to understand early sentences. Early verbs that a child needs to learn and develop understanding of, tend to be things related to actions included in their everyday activities and play and their body movements. Pause the video here to make list of the verbs that you think your child hears, in their everyday activities. When you finish, come back to the video and press play and we'll continue. It's really important that we keep a list of the early words that children understand. Children have to understand words before they can begin using them. So by keeping track, well know what new words, we need to introduce or target. When we're thinking about introducing a new verb to a child, we can use these four strategies. The first is to think about what the child really likes to do, and then model verbs in those activities. It's important that we show in module, whatever the word means in everyday situations, so that this brings the word to life and makes it familiar to the child. As we've talked about over the last couple of lessons, multisensory language really reinforces a word and can help a child to learn it. So by seeing a picture of it or a symbol of it can really help to embed early verbs. And obviously hearing the word being used lots of times in consistent ways will also really help. Verbs are actions or doing words. So this means that when you're doing them, you can also be showing what the words mean. When doing an action, say the verb in one or two phrases. For example, if you're helping your child to learn the verb, walk, make sure that whenever you're walking with your child, that you label walking together by saying things like I'm walking, you're walking. And being very consistent with any pictures or symbols that we might be choosing as a multisensory strategy to reinforce the word. This will really help the child to remember the new word and understand what it means because they've experienced it in an everyday situation. Children, it's time for you to find some toys you really want to play with. You and your adults are going to have five minutes of play. Adults, it's time to follow your child's lead. Whilst you're stopping to look and observe what the child is doing, you can also comment on the actions that your child is doing with their toys or with their bodies, but make sure you're just using one or two key words and that these are consistent throughout the play. When you finish, come back to the video and press play to continue. As we said in lesson five, it's really important that we avoid testing children on the words that they understand at the stage. It creates pressure and can be damaging and that's not what we want to achieve. What we want to do is create a really language rich environment where children are accessing words in a fun-filled natural way. Words that are reinforced through multisensory strategies are much more likely to stick. In the downloadable resource, I've included lots of ideas for how you can embed early nouns and early verbs through games and activities. Use the resource to help you to create this language rich environment for your child, and really support them to understand more words in their everyday activities. Well that brings us to the end of today's lesson. But before you go, I'd like to ask two things. Adults, if you could just take a moment to think about a few things that you've learned today, that would be great. Children, if you'd like to share some of the words that you've been working on with your teacher at school, you could ask your adult to take a picture of the words that you know, and sent this to your teacher. That way they'll be able to see the lovely progress that you're making. You could also ask your parent or carer to share this on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational, so I can see your fantastic progress too. Well, all that's left for me to say is thank you, but take care and enjoy the rest of your learning. Bye bye.

Beginning to understand more words

Beginning to understand more words

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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