Use a Family Chalkboard to Build Language

Hi, friends! Today I thought I would share a simple language building activity that has become part of our dinner-time routine.

Remember our faux chalkboard from the twins’ Little Chef party? I liked it so much that I used this tutorial to turn it into a real magnetic chalkboard that now resides permanently over our dining room table. The frame is a vintage find that I got for a few dollars at a junk store and spray painted aqua…how fun is that?

In addition to looking pretty, our chalkboard has become an important part of our evening ritual. You see, as a speech-language pathologist, one of the functional language skills I targeted with many of my students was the ability to talk about a past experience. After all, what parent doesn’t want their child to be able to answer the question, “What did you do at school today?”

Communicating about things that are not in the “here and now” requires a fairly sophisticated vocabulary and the ability to retrieve and organize information in a way that makes sense to the listener. One of the first steps in teaching a child how to talk about past events is helping them recall and discuss meaningful experiences that you have had together, such as a trip to the zoo or a favorite restaurant. Since you participated in the activity with the child, you have the benefit of shared contextual knowledge to help interpret what they are saying.

For example, today I took the twins to a soccer field in the neighborhood to try to fly a kite. Although the kite flying didn’t work out so well, we did get to watch some construction workers use machinery to work on a project next to the field. So when we were talking about the events of the day at dinner, it made total sense to me that Will would suddenly yell,” Yellow dirt! Yellow dirt! Dig-dig-SNNOOOORRRT!” We’ve been reading P.D. Eastman’s Are You My Mother, in which a baby bird refers to a giant digger as a “Snort.” Since I know all of this, his statement makes total sense to me and I can help him scaffold it into a conversation. But for Daddy, on the other hand, who only knew that we were going to go fly a kite while he went to work, Will’s statements are a lot harder to follow because he did not participate in the outing and does not have the shared context.

To help make these exchanges more successful, I started using our chalkboard as a sort of “cheat sheet” for all of us during dinner. On some days, like today, we will go on our outing in the morning, and then come back and talk about it during lunch time. I’ll use a combination of words and drawn pictures to write down the events of the day, and then we’ll practice retelling the story a few times before nap time. Keep in mind, the twins’ language skills are still emerging, so we keep it to a few short phrases/sentences and use lots of scaffolding (pointing to pictures, fill-in-the-blank prompts, etc.) when we are talking. The pictures help the twins retell the story by serving as visual cues and reducing the amount of verbal prompting needed from me. The drawings also serve as literacy boosters by helping the twins associate words with the picture symbols.

Granddad went to the park with us that day, so I included a picture of him on the board.

On other days, we might bring back mementos from our outings, like a pretty leaf from the park or a napkin from the ice cream shop. I took some clothespins and glued magnets to the back so that I can clip these mementos to the chalkboard to provide a concrete representation or “link” to a past event, which is often very helpful to children who are trying to describe something abstract like a memory. If someone special came to visit that day, I might add a photo of that person to the board if I have one handy. Sometimes I use the chalkboard to write down funny or interesting things the twins have said that day so I can remember to tell my husband about those details, too.

Will was preoccupied with the idea that a squirrel (“skwoydel”) might bite him, although that didn’t stop him from chasing them all day!

So as you can see, the chalkboard:

• helps Daddy understand the twins’ conversation attempts by providing some “background” information
• helps the twins recall and retell the day’s events without as much verbal prompting from me
• helps me remember fun details from the day to tell my husband
• serves as a pre-reading skill builder
• helps the twins develop early story-telling skills such as picking out the most important details to share and putting them in order
• serves as a vocabulary building aid

Not bad for a junk frame, piece of tin, and some chalkboard paint! I think it’s a keeper 😉

Looking for more information and ideas for building language skills in early talkers? Check out our ongoing Language Basics series here- tons of resources at your fingertips!

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