Enhancing Early Language Development through Fingerplays and Action Songs: Activity Pack & Caregiver Guide to Gesture Development

Description

This resource includes a comprehensive activity pack for targeting various early language skills to enhance both expressive and receptive language development. Goals you can target include joint attention, gestures (waving, clapping, pointing), verbal imitation of CV and CVC words, completion of verbal routines, direction following, basic concept knowledge, and identifying body parts.

This packet is adaptable for children ages 1 to 5. Each finger play activity comes with instructions and printouts for a beginner and an advanced version. The beginner version may be best suited for children that are not yet imitating gestures or are imitating gestures but have limited spoken language. The advanced version is intended for children who are independently imitating these gestures and have some spoken language.

Pages 3-6 of this resource functions as a caregiver education handout with a brief overview of the importance of gesture development, as a precursor to spoken language. The elements of this entire packet can also be sent home to promote generalization of these skills. Pages 7-27 include different songs and activities that kiddos can do.