Using play to support children's language development at home

Contributing Author: Hannah Simmons

This article was written as part of the team’s preparation for the 2023 Right to Play Conference hosted by the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford. 

Introduction

The home environment plays an important role in supporting children’s oral language development. It is a context in which children spend a significant proportion of their life and the primary location of their interactions with parents and caregivers. These interactions have a powerful influence on children’s development and can mitigate risk factors frequently experienced by children raised in language-starved environments. Equipping parents and caregivers with strategies to support their child’s development through these interactions is therefore important – especially for those from low-income or disadvantaged backgrounds. 

In keeping with the theme of play for this blog series, we will consider several play-based strategies which parents and caregivers in low-resource contexts can use to provide language-rich interactions for their child. By employing these techniques, caregivers can leverage their frequent and close contact with their child to help build the speaking and listening skills critical for them to succeed in school and engage positively in community life.

Importance of parent-child interactions

The Bioecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) positions the child’s home environment and those who inhabit it within the ‘microsystem’. The microsystem is made up of the physical environment(s) (termed ‘context’) and social interactions (termed ‘processes’) with which the child has direct, frequent contact. The environment and social interactions of the microsystem uniquely interact with and influence the child. For example, for the child growing up in a Nairobi slum, the home context is a ‘risk factor’: exposed sewage systems, unstable infrastructure and overcrowding are potentially detrimental to the child’s healthy development. If the same child has a responsible, caring and engaged parent who teaches the child how to navigate their environment safely and ensures they are not left unsupervised, then the child’s relationship with their parent would be considered a ‘protective factor’. In short, the caregiver helps keep the child safe and healthy despite the risks associated with their immediate environment. 

Illustrator: Ana RoGu

The  notion that caregiver interactions have a powerful influence on children’s acquisition of the skills needed to manage their environment is consistent with Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of child development (1978). Vygotsky proposed children first ‘learn’ through social interaction before a concept or skill becomes part of their internal mental structure. Although this doesn’t speak directly to interactions concerning caregivers/parents, or the need to overcome environmental risk factors, we may extrapolate that if social interactions are the most powerful learning mechanism, then those with whom children frequently interact (e.g., caregivers) are well-placed to influence their learning. 

Viewing child development through the lens of protective and risk factors not only recognises the significance of social interactions, but goes further to highlight the unique contribution parents or caregivers can make to children’s development: their care and engagement can help children overcome environmental challenges, like poverty, displacement or natural disasters. Parents and caregivers thus represent an important entry point for interventions which seek to positively influence children’s development. 

With respect to language abilities – the focus of this blog - a broad body of empirical evidence indicates children’s close social interactions shape their language skills (e.g., Pan, Rowe, Singer, & Snow, 2005; Hoff, 2003a; Abimpaye et al., 2020; Huttenlocher, Vasilyeva, Cymerman, & Levine, 2002). We will now explore how simple play-based parent-child interactions can be used as a low-cost strategy to enhance children’s speaking and listening skills at home.

Using play to support children’s oral language development at home

Parent-child talk during play

The easiest way for parents to support children’s oral language development at home is simply by talking to them. Through conversation, parents expose children to new words which helps broaden children’s vocabulary. Caregivers in families of low socio-economic status (SES) have been found to talk less with their children, and use a more limited vocabulary (Hart & Risley, 1995; Hoff, 2003a). This has been found to contribute to alarming differences in the vocabulary of children from different socio-economic backgrounds: a child from a high-SES family is exposed to an average of 215,000 words, while a child from a low socio-economic background is exposed to just 62,000 (Hart & Risley, 1995).

Parent-child talk during play can take a variety of forms. In child-directed free play, parents can ask children open-ended questions about their play. A general enquiry, such as “It looks like you are having a lot of fun there, can you tell me about your game?” could develop to more questions eliciting more detailed responses. For example, if a child is pretending to be a bus driver, a parent could ask “I’m sure you’re a very good bus driver. What do you like best about driving the bus?”. Joining in child-directed imaginative play allows parents to introduce richer vocabulary and model more complex language. Instead of merely asking about the child’s play, a parent can use language to contribute to play: “This bus ride is passing some beautiful scenery! I can see a calm blue lake, big green mountains, and lots of colourful birds!”. Here, it is important adults do not to ‘hijack’ play by redirecting dialogue and activities to focus on a particular topic or skill. For example, if the child pretending to drive a bus is more interested in talking about who is getting on the bus than about where it is going, the caregiver shouldn’t insist on discussing the latter. Likewise, the adult shouldn’t fixate on integrating specific skills, like counting passengers or having the child phonetically break down new words before play can continue. Prompting the child to count or sound out a word can be helpful to drive learning during play, but when an activity feels obligatory and forced it is no longer playful. Supporting language development by engaging in child-directed play is about leveraging an experience which is enjoyable, creative and engaging for the child and using it to extend their speaking and listening skills.

Structured play activities also provide opportunity for parents to stimulate children’s language development at home. Unlike child-directed free play, structured play activities typically have specific rules or goals. Parents can therefore choose a particular activity based on its goal or content in order to promote specific vocabulary or syntax. For example, Hohenstein (2013) observed parent-child dyads playing a variation of the board game ‘Snakes and Ladders’. The structure of the Snakes and Ladders encourages the use of motion verbs like ‘climb’ or ‘slide’: if players land on a ladder, they can ‘climb up’ towards the target end of the board; if they land on the head of a snake, they must ‘slide down’ to the tip of the snake’s tail, moving them farther from the target end. Hohenstein found parents’ use of motion words during the game mapped onto children’s subsequent use of motion event language. 

Structured play can consequently be considered an effective strategy for intentionally supporting the child’s development of specific language skills through parent-child play. However, it should be noted that the structured play itself does not need to have a language focus. The language element of play, in this case comes, from the verbal interactions which describe and guide the game and not necessarily the game itself. Therefore, in a low-resource setting, creating a pattern using bottle tops could be an equally stimulating structured play activity to do at home as long as it is accompanied by oral interactions. 

Musical play

Another effective type of play which parents and caregivers can use to promote language development is music. Both language and music draw on a sound category learning mechanism (McMullen & Saffran, 2004): in language, the sound categories are typically phonemes or syllables; in music, they may be notes or beats (Dege & Schwarzer, 2011). This similarity has been linked to a positive transfer relationship between music and language. For example, children exposed to high levels of music activities show better language outcomes (Franco et al., 2022). Music-based activities can therefore provide a playful approach for parents to support their children’s oral language skills.

Around the world, songs are part of the cultural tapestry of communities. Parents and caregivers typically have access to a range of songs they can sing with a child at home, even if these songs are shared orally and not written down. Moreover, parent-child singing is cost-free and requires very little skill on the part of the parent (being pitch-perfect is certainly not required). As such, parent- or caregiver-child singing is especially accessible for those with limited access to play materials.

Additionally, simple songs are often used as a pedagogical tool in preschool classrooms. Parents can revisit these songs at home to reinforce children’s listening skills, rhythm, and vocabulary – even allowing the child to teach the song to the parent. Alternatively, parents can introduce new songs which come with new vocabulary. This provides an extra opportunity to enrich the child’s vocabulary by explaining the meaning of any new words.

Aside from singing, rhythm-focused music activities have been found to support children’s phonological and syllabic awareness. Activities like clapping a rhythm or copying a beat on different body parts help children to practice their listening skills and discern individual sounds. For younger children, parents and children could clap a simple rhythm and then begin clapping the syllables in their names. UNICEF also recommends using kitchen items, like pots, pans and spoons to play out rhythms with children. For older children, Right to Play suggest a  ‘syllable dance’ activity in which children and adults come up with a dance move for each syllable in their name. A similar activity is the ‘clapping game’. 

Shared book-reading

While  books are often associated with literacy skills, shared book reading can be an effective way for parents to grow their child’s speaking and listening skills too. During shared book reading, the focus is on reading the story to, or with, the child, as well as on discussing the plot, characters and pictures. Using these features is an effective springboard to richer, more complex parent-child talk. 

Illustrator: Bonné Saengsuwon 

For shared book reading to be impactful, an appropriate book should be selected. Pictures are an important aid to follow a story and make inferences about characters, especially for young children (e.g., “How do you think the little boy is feeling here?”). 

During reading, parents must be intentional and considerate about how they use their own language skills. 

Suskind and colleagues (2015) introduced ‘3Ts’ as part of a parent-directed language intervention to support children from low socioeconomic backgrounds in Chicago: Talk More, Tune In and Take Turns. To stimulate effective shared book reading, parents were provided with books and given guidance to: introduce new words or provide definitions for vocabulary in the story (Talk More); take turns to discuss the contents of the story (Take Turns); and explore children’s interests about the book or story, like asking about their favourite character (Tune In). 

In a similar RCT in a South African settlement, caregivers were trained to facilitate quality shared reading by: pointing to and naming things in the book, emphasising things which the infant showed interest in, linking the story to the infant’s real world (e.g., ‘That boy is wearing blue like your blue hat.’) and using active questioning (e.g., ‘Where is the dog?’) (Vally, Murray, Tomlinson & Cooper, 2015). Results of the study revealed a significant positive impact of shared reading on children’s oral language development: infants in the intervention group were able to understand and vocalise a significantly greater number of words then their control group counterparts.

For parents and caregivers in low-resource settings where appropriate books may be harder to come by, dialogic reading strategies (like those above) can be applied to available reading materials (like magazines or posters) and real-world experiences. For example, the 3Ts approach can be applied on a trip to the market to make it a playful language-learning experience: introducing new words, talking about what the child can see, hear, feel and smell, and responding to things that spark the child’s interest. Consequently, dialogic approaches – with or without books – represent another playful method through which caregivers can assert themselves as a ‘protective factor’ – engaging in stimulating, supportive social interaction with the child.

Conclusion

Children, especially young children, spend a significant portion of their time at home with parents and caregivers. Because of the proximity and frequency of these interactions, quality caregiver-child interactions have been found to serve as a protective factor for children exposed to contextual risks like poverty. Thus, when we equip parents and caregivers with strategies to support their child’s oral language development, we empower them in their role as ‘protectors’. Quality, language-rich interactions with caregivers help children to develop a broader, deeper vocabulary and build their grammar and discourse skills, resulting in the growth of critical speaking and listening abilities.

Play is an effective way to support these interactions because, during play, children are typically actively engaged, enjoying themselves and making their experience meaningful. By using the playful approaches outlined above, like shared book reading, singing and dancing, or simply by asking questions and contributing to children’s own play, parents and caregivers can help children develop their speaking and listening skills with require extensive or expensive resources.

About the Author 

Hannah Simmons is a Researcher Affiliate in the TalkTogether project with research interests in socio-emotional, language and literacy development in the Global South. With expertise in African Studies and Swahili, as well as Child Development and Education, Hannah’s work has included research and development of edutainment content, design and management of education projects for bilateral donor agencies, and consultation on education initiatives with a focus on East Africa. Recently, Hannah worked as Impacts Research Officer for TalkTogether. Hannah is currently Tanzania Co-Country Lead for the EdTech Hub – a global research partnership which supports governments in LMICs to generate and apply evidence to strengthen education systems.

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