Beginning to use naming words

Speech and language therapy

﻿Hello, everyone, 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, I'm going to be talking to you about naming words. Together, we're going to do some thinking about how adults can help you to use and learn naming words, and we're going to have some naming word games. Throughout all of the activities, I'll be sharing some tips for adults to help you to develop your use of language. So for today's session, all you'll need are some toys. Adults, you'll need some writing equipment and the downloadable resource that'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 seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's begin. Let's start by doing some talking and thinking about beginning to use naming words. As we know, children learn words by hearing them lots of times in lots of different places. They need adults to model language to develop their understanding of it. Children need to understand words before they can begin using them. In our last session, we talked about how multisensory information is much easier to learn and understand, so it really helps when adults use signs, gestures, pictures, and symbols to help bring the words that they're modelling to life. One of the first types of words that children learn are nouns, naming words. Nouns are usually the first types of words that children learn to understand and use because they're concrete and they can be matched to familiar objects, for example, objects in their play or everyday activities. Pause the video here to make a list of the nouns that you think the child hears throughout their everyday activities. When you've had a few moments to write these down, come back to the video and press play to continue. It really helps to have a list of words that we know that the child understands so that we can be able to target the support and modelling that we're offering and really help them to make progress with their language development. Now that you've got your list of nouns that the child is likely to hear in their day-to-day activities, you can think about activities that the child really likes to do and model some of these nouns or other nouns that they need to develop an understanding of into these activities. Make sure that you're providing lots of opportunity to talk about what the child is doing or looking at by labelling the objects. So it's time for some Special Time. Children, you need to find something that you really want to play with. The adults are going to follow your lead. Adults, during the play, make a conscious effort to name the objects that child is showing an interest in using single words. If the child is using language, then don't forget, you can repeat and extend the child's words by adding a few extra. Once you've had five or so minutes of Special Time, come back to the video and press play to continue. When we're thinking about introducing new nouns to the child, we need to start simple and familiar. Make sure that everybody who's working with the child knows the words that you're going to be working on so that everyone can then repeat these words in as many different situations as possible. We also need to make sure that any early nouns that we're introducing to the child are reinforced through multisensory strategies, so having an object of it, picture of it, and a symbol where possible as well. And that whenever we're labelling or commenting and that noun comes up, we can refer back to the multisensory strategy to embed that language a little bit more. So now it's time to go on a Language Walk. Children, you're going to go on a walk. It could be around the house, in the garden, or even out and about. Adults, whilst you're on this walk, label what you see. Take some pictures of the things that you're labelling together. And then when you get back, look at these pictures and recap the words and the pictures they match to. When you're finished, come back to the video and press play to finish the lesson. We want to create a language-rich environment for our children where they're accessing words in fun-filled, natural exchanges. Remember that words that are reinforced through multi-sensory and visual approaches are much more likely to stick, so create as many opportunities for talking and naming as possible. And make sure that you're reinforcing any new naming words for things like pictures, symbols, or objects to really help them hook into the child's understanding. It's so important that the child is having fun with words when they're learning to use and understand them. Well, that's all for today's lesson. A really big well done for all the fantastic early naming words that you've been understanding and using today. If you'd like, you could ask your parent or carer to send a list of the words that you've been working on to your teacher at school so that they can see the progress that you're making. You could also ask your parent or carer to share this with @OakNational on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram so I can see your progress too. Well, all that's left for me to say is thank you but take care and enjoy the rest of your learning today.

Beginning to use naming words

Beginning to use naming words

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

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