Milton Keynes Speech and Language Therapy Service

12/09/2025

Before children start to learn their first words, many children develop the use of symbolic sounds. These are fun, short sounds which are associated with feelings, objects or actions that have meaning.

Here are some top tips on how you can help your child to copy these sounds:
- Use sounds for everyday situations and feelings e.g. “uh oh” – when something’s fallen, “mmmm” – for food, “aww” – when giving somebody a cuddle
- Sounds for actions e.g. “tick tock” for a clock, “bang bang” when banging on a drum, “weee” – going down a slide
- Create a sound bag where you can have lots of different objects such as transport and animals. Take turns to choose an object and model the sounds e.g. for transport you can say “brum brum” (car), choo choo (train) and for animals you can model sounds such as “meow” (cat), “baaa baa” (sheep), “moo moo” (cow)

09/09/2025

We always encourage parents to speak to their children in their home language if this is something the family wish to do.

Being bilingual doesn’t cause a language difficulty, but children learning two languages may master their skills in both languages at a slower rate than a child developing one language only (as different languages vary in structure, grammatical rules and vocabulary).

General tips
- Be natural – If you are confident using both languages, then do so.
If not, keep to the language that you are most comfortable with. It is important that your child is supported to learn one language well.
- Be consistent – Separate the languages by:
o Person (e.g. the first language consistently used by one parent and the second by the other parent)
o Location (e.g. the first language at home and English at nursery)
o Activity (e.g. the first language at bath time, English at breakfast etc.)

08/09/2025

07/09/2025

Why not make the mornings a little more enjoyable and fun for yourself and your children, by making up and singing rhymes about getting ready for school.

Follow this link to find more ideas on how to make the morning routines more fun.

Help your little one get ready for school by singing this fun song with them!

03/09/2025

Going back to school or beginning school for the first time is a big step for both children and parents.

Take a look at some of the tips on this website: » Speech and language tips to get your child ready for starting school

02/09/2025

Going back to school or beginning school for the first time is a big step for both children and parents.

Take a look at some of the tips on this website https://surreychildandfamily.co.uk/speech-and-language-tips-to-get-your-child-ready-for-starting-school/

29/08/2025

Here’s a fun detective guessing game to try with your children…
Put some everyday objects into a bag (e.g. cup, fork, apple, keys, book, sock).
Tell your child they are going to be a detective, and then give them some clues about what is in the bag!
For example, “The first thing is something you can eat, and it’s round and hard”.
To make this easier, you could use just 2 objects. Show and describe them both to your child before you put them in the bag.
To make it harder, use more objects and do not show them to your child at the start of the game! You could also have things which are similar in the bag, e.g. a spoon and a fork, a shoe and a sock.

28/08/2025

Talking tip!
Children are exposed to lots of new words every day. Sometimes it can be difficult for them to hold on to each of these new words.
Making links to words we already know can make it easier to learn these new words. Linking words together helps us to organise our vocabulary, which means we can understand and quickly find the right words to say when we need to.
We can use lots of new strategies to help children make links to words that they already know.
- Make links when you’re talking to them. Try to explain how the new words link to other familiar words, e.g. “a tangerine, it’s like an orange!”.
- Categories. Sorting things into categories is a great way to make links between words, e.g. grouping foods into different categories when you’re unpacking the shopping, or separating their farm vs zoo animal toys.

27/08/2025

Can your child hear the difference between sounds at the beginning of words? Here’s a game you could try…

Tell your child a story about 2 characters that only like to eat things beginning with one sound. Each character only likes one sound, e.g. ‘Teddy’ only likes the ‘m’ sound whilst ‘Dolly’ likes the ‘t’ sound.

Put some items beginning with each of these sounds in a bag, and take it in turns to take one out. Let your child say the word, and then they have to decide which monster will eat the item.

You might have to help your child if they make a mistake.

To make it easier – you could say all the words for your child, emphasising the first sound.

To make it harder – ask your child to think of some new objects for each character.

26/08/2025

To celebrate national dog day, why not take your dog and little one out for a walk somewhere new?

If you haven’t got a dog, you could offer to walk a friends’ dog, or see how many dogs you can spot on your walk together!

Happy walking 😊

22/08/2025

Talking tip!

When you’re reading books with your little one or playing together, try not to ask questions.

When we ask “what’s that?”, children can feel tested. It’s more helpful to point to things and name them. Or even better - watch your child to see what they are interested in and what they are looking at, and then name it!