Practice Better Language Skills with These 5 iPAD Games
In this this post, we share how you can practice better language skills with your child using 5 iPAD games. These apps provide great opportunities for children to learn new words and hear modeled sentences. This post may be helpful to both parents and experts alike as well. By using the apps below, you get many chances to give your child rich language models that include many of the most important words.
The creators of the apps did not sponsor any of these mentions. This review of apps comes from clinical experience and preference. We also talk about how you may find new apps that support language development through guided practice and models.
Let’s get started!
How You Can Practice Better Language Skills with Apps
The most important question is how. Simply letting your child play the games without your guidance won’t help them practice better language skills. For these games, kids need direct support from parents to get the most out of their learning. By giving rich example and modeling sentences (talking about what you and your child do in the game), you transform these games into powerful language learning lessons.
Think of it this way, your child plays the app, and you narrate what they do. You get to be the voice that explains everything that’s happening. While this may seem passive, you actually give your child rich language models. This helps build up their receptive and expressive language.
To practice better language skills with your child when playing the apps, try to:
- Give models by talking about what you and your child do in the game
- Not ask a lot of questions (focus on talking about the game)
- Emphasize verbs, articles, prepositions and adjectives
- See how many new sentences you can say when your child plays
Practice Better Language Skills with Toca Kitchen
Toca Kitchen by Toca Boca gets kids attention and offers lots of chances for them to make whole sentences. In this game, the kids pick a character and feed the character different types of food. They get to cook the food in all different kinds of ways (e.g., microwave, cutting, frying).
Throughout the game you get to help them make sentences and talk about what they do. You might say things like, “Oh it looks like you want to cook the tomato” or “You cut the carrot with a knife.” Keep emphasizing those important core words.
When they finish cooking, they get to see if the character liked or didn’t like the food. This gives them experience with social language. We might say, “Oh it looks like the cat loved the fish” or “oh the bull did not like the potato.” You might even share your preferences when they play: “Oh good choice, that watermelon looks delicious. I really like watermelon.”
Pango Land
Kids also find this game their favorite too. Pango Land by Studio-Pango offers a more interactive and exploratory experience for kids. They get to pick up Pango and other characters and move them around. Pango interacts with different objects, too.
So if they give Pango a guitar, he plays guitar. If they place Pango in bed, he sleeps. They get plenty of opportunities to try different activities, which means even more rich language models. You might also (once in a while) ask them what they want to do, and they might say something like, “Go pig” or “Go pig house.” You might then expand on what they say with a model like, “Oh you want to go to the pig’s house.”
Like all of these games, make sure that the child directs the game. You might be modeling language, but the game needs to stay a game for them. Let them play, try to play with them at times, and talk about what you both do. Most importantly, keep it fun!!
Forest Flyer
Forest Flyer by Sago Mini also gives kids chances to explore and make sentences. In this game a bird flies around a forest interacting with other characters. When the bird gets close to a highlighted part, a small scene plays out.
For example, if they fly the bird to the cupcake, the bird puts its beak in the cupcake and eats it. They get to laugh at the funny scene and hear you make a great sentence about it.
This game may offer a slightly limited variety of language opportunities compared to the other games on the list, but what it does offer is great. And because every scene plays on its own, it gives you a chance to talk about it while your child watches.
A lot of times kids will jump from one activity to the next, which may make it harder to talk about what they do. In this game, however, those quick pauses help make your sentence models stand out. It also gives the child a chance to make their own sentence about what they see happening in the game.
Practice Better Language Skills with My PlayHome
In my opinion, this is one of the best apps available for speech therapists and families to use. It gives the children plenty of ways to make sentences and hear sentences. The game offers a highly interactive and realistic experience. Kids get to move their characters around a house (they also have a school app, too) and make the character use different objects.
This app recreates the home environment virtually. It gives kids a chance to make sentences about a home and what they find in a home, but in a highly structured and guided situation. This makes it ideal for practicing better language skills.
For example, they might sit a boy (character) down in the kitchen and pour cereal. The boy will then eat the cereal. You can encourage them to talk about it, too. You might say, “Look the boy is eating the cereal from the bowl. I wonder what he’ll do next.”
This app gives you a way to model language for everyday activities that your child engages in, yet in a virtual setting. However, language is language, and what they hear from you when playing the game, they will be better equipped to use around the house and during real-life activities.
Friends-Playdate
Friends-Playdate by Sago Mini also gives kids great opportunities to practice language skills. The characters go from one house to the next visiting their friends. In each house they get to try something different. For example, they might blow up balloons, wash dishes, dress a stuffed animal, build a toy, etc.
This game works especially well for younger kids (ages 2-4). The activities change as they move to each house. The kids get to pick a new character each time they play as well. This game gives extra practice for better language skills with certain activities. When they visit each house, make sure to talk about it: “Oh you’re visiting the bunny’s house. I wonder what will happen. Oh the dog is drinking the juice.”
How to Pick Games to Practice Better Language Skills
Not every game works for building better language skills. In fact, many of the apps don’t work well for this purpose. However, many do, which includes the ones on this list. If you want to expand the language-friendly apps on your child’s iPAD, look for games that:
- Involve exploration and interaction
- Show events you can make sentences about
- Are appropriate to the child’s learning needs and age
- Show realistic actions (drinking juice, dress up, playing games)
- Give lots of freedom in how they play (child-directed)
Conclusion
Many iPAD games offer families a great way to practice better language skills with their child. Not all games work well for this purpose. And games are not enough on their own – parents must provide models if they expect to grow their child’s language skills through apps.
Families might model what they do and what their child does. They might also expand on what their child says by repeating it correctly and with extra words. There are effective ways of building better language skills with apps. When looking for good language apps, find games that involve exploration and interaction and offer lots of opportunities to make sentences.
If you want guidance on how to best support your child’s language skills at home, reach out to a licensed speech therapist.
