Language Tips: When the Smallest Students Head Back-to-School

Despite the 80-degree days, fall is just a few short weeks away! Some of our little ones are heading to preschool for the very first time, while others are facing new classrooms and teachers. This can be a time of anxiety and excitement filled with new faces and new rules. Here are some easy ways to incorporate language learning moments while helping our smallest students face these exciting challenges.

Play Classroom: Make sure to speak with your child’s teacher about any classroom rules. Kids love to play “school” and you can use this to practice these rules. Use imaginary play with little figures or stuffed animals to create classroom scenarios that include following these rules. Remember to make this play fun and give your child the opportunity to lead the story, with some gentle steering from you. While playing “school” you can have some fun messing up the classroom but then tell your child, “Oops! In Mrs. Lamb’s classroom, it’s important to put toys away after you play with them!” Model having your character clean up the toys in the “classroom.” Keep sentences short but grammatically correct. If your child generally speaks with two or three-word sentences, you can use four or five-word sentences (not including little filler words like “the”). So if your child says, “read funny book” then you would say, “Yes. Mr Lamb is reading a funny book!”

Make a Picture Book: Ask your child’s teacher if you can take a picture of him or her. You and your child can create a photo book of all the most important people in his or her life. Nothing is more fun than glue sticks and markers! Including his or her teacher in the book can help your child become comfortable with his or her new teacher, more quickly. You can talk about how Ms. Dana has brown eyes but you have blue eyes or Ms. Dana has brown hair and so do you! Pointing out these details can help early language learners start to understand the important preschool language concept of “same” and “different.”

Ask Questions: After school, ask your child pointed questions about his or her day. Find out his daily schedule and ask him specific questions about it. For example, instead of “what did you do today?” You could ask, “What animals did you play with during water play today?” Ask follow-up questions. For example, if your child answers “Hippo and fish.” Then you could respond, “Oh wow! You played with the fish and the hippo! What did they do in the water?” Asking these types of question can help children feel like confidence communicators.

Read a Book: If your little one is having a hard time with the transition into a new school year, why not read a book together to ease some of those anxious feelings. Remember, silly is king with this set and these books help take silly to a new level. Please see the list of recommended books below. While reading the book, you can encourage your child to continue paying attention by saying, “Turn the page, awesome job!” You can dip in and out of the story and point out characters or items of interest during the book reading. “Wow, look at the silly mouse!” After finishing reading, you could ask a question that relates back to the book. “Oh my gosh! That mouse did not want to go to school! But he had so much fun! What’s fun in Ms. Dana’s classroom?” Some recommended back-to-school books for preschoolers include:

• “First Day Jitters” by Julie Danneberg

• “David Goes to School” by David Shannon

• “If You Take a Mouse to School” by Laura Numeroff

• “Froggy Goes to School” by Jonathan London

Happy Back-to-School!