Children who come from homes in which they are spoken to frequently are able to use words as tools to communicate more effectively outside the family. Preschoolers who are talked to regularly use words to express needs and wants, and, in time, they will be able to express feelings with words. Words do lose some of their magic powers, however, as wishes are not immediately gratified in the preschool setting. This can be a difficult learning experience for a preschool-age child.
Providing a vocabulary that enables preschoolers to talk about their feelings is important. Ignoring children’s feelings will not make them go away; rather, they will fester beneath the surface and come out in other, less appropriate, ways. The preschool teacher’s imprecation, “Use your words” may be used to good effect by parents in the face of the preschool-age child’s physical expressions of anger. Help your preschooler to explain his anger to others by narrating his feelings for him until he is able to do so himself (“Andrew, tell Jason how it made you feel when he knocked down your block tower. Say, ‘I’m feeling very angry at you, Jason. You knocked down my block tower. Will you help me build it again?’”).
In addition to talking about feelings, think out loud with preschoolers. Narrating your decision-making processes is helpful to them. “First, I did the laundry, then I put away the dishes, now I can go outside and play with you.” or “I chose to wear a rain coat today because the weatherman says it’s going to rain.”
Continue to scaffold preschooler’s speech. Providing expansions and extensions (see post from June 9th for a discussion of scaffolding, expansions, and extensions) will, over time, lead them to engage in richer forms of communication.
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