Broadcasting

Last Updated on Monday, 19 January 2009 06:07 Saturday, 07 July 2007 09:54

Broadcasting

How does broadcasting help your child talk?  Broadcasting will give your child lots of opportunities to hear a word.  Some children need over 100 examples of a word before they will attempt to imitate it.

So how do you use the broadcasting strategy?  In short you are talking about what you are doing and about what your child is doing like a broadcaster.  I like to do this with my infant daughter.  When she is watching what I am doing I will be a broadcaster and describe what she is seeing.  It is important to broadcast at a level that is easier for your child to understand and imitate.  For instance, when broadcasting to my infant daughter I will often use single words or short phrases.  Think of what it would be like if you were hearing an unknown language broadcast to you with full sentences.  It would be much easier to figure out what words mean and imitate them if you were hearing single words. 

For instance when my infant daughter is watching me wash dishes she may hear something like this:

"Spoon.  Spoon in.  More spoons.  Plate.  Plate dirty.  Wash plate.  Plate."

When I am using this strategy when my daughter is playing she may hear something like this:

"Book.  Book.  Play book.  Ball.  Ball fall down.  Ball up.  Ball gone.  Ball."

This strategy can be used with children at varying levels of language development.  Your broadcasting just needs to be matched so it is just above your child's level.  You can even use this strategy with an older child to help them learn new vocabulary.