Pages Tuesday, 21 February 2012 How to talk to a 2 year old: more ideas The Teeny Talker groups that we do are designed to encourage spoken language development in two year olds. Last time we looked at some ideas to help at home. Here is Part 2 of the ideas from Talking Matters More ideas to develop language : Pretend play is great for developing language and social skills. Two year olds are happy to be alongside you, copying the things they see you do every day. They could "cook" with a wooden spoon and some plastic bowls while you make tea, or "peg" some socks on the edge of the basket as you hang your clothes on the line. They can also pretend to look after teddies or dolls, copying the things you do with them such as feeding and bath-ing. These activities which children see repeated over and over are great for teaching action words and func-tions. Talk out loud as you do jobs about the house . Talk about what you are doing and what you are using and your child will learn all kinds of things. "I'm cutting the carrots, chop, chop, chop" "I need something to mix the gravy, what could I use, spoons are good for mixing" Sorting and tidying are great ways to practice concepts such as size, shape, colour and position words. As you sort the washing you could talk about size. "here are the big socks and here are the