What goes together?
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Find some objects from around the house that are used together such as cup, juice, toothpaste, toothbrush, sock, shoe, hat, glove, butter, bread, child friendly knife, fork, pen, paper.
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Mix the objects up and ask your child if they can find which objects go together.
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Each time they find a pair ask them to say why the objects go together, encourage sentences such as 'the toothpaste and tooth brush go together because you use them to brush your teeth'.
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Using words such as ‘and’ and ‘because’ will help your child to make longer and more complex sentences.

Story telling
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Encourage your child to tell a story, it might help to have props such as teddies, dolls, puppets or action figures.
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Encourage them to tell you what happened. If they say a sentence wrong, say it back to them correctly. E.g. your child says 'he runned all the way', you say 'oh he ran all the way'
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Ask your child what they think will happen next in the story.
Action replay
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After your child has watched an episode of their favourite programme encourage them to tell you what has happened in the programme.
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Prompt them to include who was in the programme, where the characters were, what happened and why it happened and how the characters were feeling.
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Words such as who, where, what, why and how are really important for your child’s language development.
Matching and opposites
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Find a few objects or toys from round the house.
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Let your child pick an object. Use a describing word for the object, such as fluffy, shiny, tiny, heavy.
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See if your child can find something that matches, e.g. if it's fluffy, can they find something else around the house that is also fluffy.
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Next, see if your child can find something opposite, e.g. if it's heavy, can they find something not heavy or light?
Sounds in stories
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Look at a book, comic or magazine with your child.
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You can read it or just talk about the pictures.
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Explore the sounds in the story, what noises do animals, vehicles or characters make?
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What sounds do they begin with? E.g. tiger begins with 't'. Are there any other things in the picture beginning with 't'?
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Are there any words that rhyme? E.g. fox rhymes with socks.
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Talking about sounds and rhymes will help to develop important skills for reading.