Most home practice runs aground in the same place. Not on the exercises, and not on the child — on the setup. By the time the flashcards are found and the timer is set, the ten-minute window has closed and everyone is a little tired of the whole idea.
Turn-taking is the happy exception. It needs no materials and no preparation, and it can happen at the table while dinner is finishing. It is also worth practising in its own right: taking a turn, waiting, and noticing when the other person has finished is the scaffolding that conversation is built on. [PLACEHOLDER — supporting research on turn-taking and early communication development]
What follows are four games we come back to. Read them once, pick the one that suits your child today, and leave the other three for another week.
Before you start: three small rules
These apply to every game below, and they matter more than which game you choose.
- Sit at their eye level. Across the corner of the table works better than across its full width. It makes taking turns feel like a shared thing rather than a test.
- Wait longer than feels natural. Count to five in your head after your turn ends. Most of us fill the silence at two, and the pause is exactly where your child's turn was going to go.
- Stop while it is still fun. Ending a game with everyone wanting one more round is what makes tomorrow easy.
1. The one-item swap
Put a single object between you — a spoon, a small cup, a piece of fruit. You take it, do something with it, and slide it back. Your child takes it and does something of their own. That is the whole game.
The point is not the object. It is the rhythm of mine, then yours, made visible by something moving across the table. If your child does not hand it back at first, that is fine — reach gently, say "my turn," and carry on. The exchange itself is the practice.
Add words once the rhythm is steady. Name what you are doing in two or three words as you do it — "cup up," "spoon in" — and leave the same space afterwards for your child to name theirs. Do not ask them to repeat you. Just leave the room for it.
2. Build and knock
Stack whatever is to hand: cups, coasters, small boxes. You add one, they add one. Whoever the tower falls on gets to laugh loudest.
This one earns its place because the turns are unmistakable. There is a physical object, a clear moment when your turn is over, and a shared reason to look at each other. For a child who finds the back-and-forth of conversation hard to read, the tower does the explaining for you.
Try this week
- Pick one game and play it three times this week — same game, same time of day.
- After your turn, count silently to five before doing anything else.
- Note down which game held their attention longest. That is your starting point next week.
3. Sound and echo
You make a sound — a tap on the table, a hum, a click. Your child makes one back. Then they lead and you follow.
Letting your child lead is the part that does the work, and it is the part most of us skip. Following their sound tells them that what they produce is worth responding to, which is a more useful lesson than any particular sound they might learn to make.
The first thing we notice is that the parent is doing all the leading. The change we suggest is usually just to swap who goes first.
[PLACEHOLDER — attributed quote]
4. Finish my sentence
For children who already have some words. Start a sentence your child knows the shape of and stop before the last word — "we put our shoes on our ..." — then wait.
Use sentences from your actual routine rather than made-up ones. Familiarity is what makes the gap fillable. If the word does not come after a long pause, supply it warmly and move on. A missed one is not a failure; it is information about which sentences to use next time.
When it stops working
It will, and usually sooner than you expect. A child who was happy with the swap game on Tuesday may want nothing to do with it on Thursday. A few things that help:
- Shorten it before you change it. Three rounds that go well beat ten that end badly. Two minutes is a real session.
- Change the object, not the game. The same game with a new spoon is often a new game as far as your child is concerned.
- Let a refusal be a refusal. Pushing through turns practice into something to be avoided. Come back tomorrow.
- Watch for your own fatigue. If you are running on empty, the five-second wait is the first thing to go. That is worth a night off.
When to bring in a professional
Home practice like this is educational — a way to build confidence and add more communication to an ordinary day. It is not medical care, and it does not tell you what is going on underneath.
Talk to a qualified speech-language professional if you are worried about your child's progress, if communication seems to be going backwards, if your child becomes distressed during everyday interaction, or if you simply want an individual assessment. A professional can look at your child specifically, which no article can do. Nothing on this site is a substitute for that.
If your child already works with a professional, bring these games to them and ask which fit the goals you are working on. Practice at home works best when it points in the same direction as the work being done elsewhere.