24/11/2025
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), “quack quack” (duck)
• You can also model these sounds during lots of fun activities e.g. books, jigsaw puzzles, pretend play such as cooking, singing songs such as “Old McDonald’s Farm” or “wheels on the bus”
Remember to have fun and make your voice exciting by using different noises e.g. loud / quiet or excited etc.
