When discussing lockdown drills with students, it’s essential to remain calm and explain that they are similar to fire drills – this will put their minds at ease and ensure they fully appreciate their purpose.
Many young people have reported that being placed under lockdown has taught them to value their relationships with their families more deeply. Through one-on-one conversations rather than through social media platforms, these young people have discovered new appreciations of family life.
1. Improve Vocabulary Skills
Children learn their language skills primarily by listening and interacting with those around them, starting from babies who can make associations between sounds they hear and people and objects they encounter. Therefore, lack of interaction with other people can have a devastating effect on a child’s ability to pick up new words – this is especially true of young children at an essential stage in their development when it comes to building vocabulary.
Many young children have not had access to play with friends or attend family outings during the COVID-19 lockdown, compromising their vocabulary skills and placing them behind in terms of speech and language development. Furthermore, lack of access to high-speed Internet has hampered students who receive speech therapy through their school from keeping up with lessons.
At Covid-19 lockdown times, there are ways you can help your child improve their English speaking abilities. One effective method is listening to audiobooks. Many such recordings can be found online and feature famous authors or spoken-voice artists who will narrate how their words should be said so your child can emulate that pronunciation when learning English themselves.
2. Improve Writing Skills
Writing is an integral component of education for young children and one of the critical skills they must learn during their early years. Children who struggle to write can be put at greater risk of academic failure – this may have lasting repercussions for lifelong achievement. Since COVID-19 was first identified, several factors have hindered students’ writing development, such as home learning environments, technology access, and speech therapy services available locally.
4. Improve Communication Skills
Students with practical communication skills are more likely to participate actively in class discussions and group projects, make friends more easily, collaborate more successfully with colleagues, and form new relationships more readily. They can strengthen these abilities in many different ways, from participating in speech classes to reading widely.
One of the primary concerns among parents during this pandemic has been its impact on children’s speech and language development. Children who already struggled in these areas may have been particularly negatively impacted, leading to long-term consequences.
Those around them strongly impact children’s speech and language development. Even babies learn the sounds of their environment from infancy onwards, which may shape how they eventually come to speak. Failure to develop these skills properly may result in social or mental health issues as well.
Though the lockdown disrupted opportunities to promote speech and language development in schools, many children were still able to catch up once the pandemic ended. Unfortunately, disparities in home learning environments and access to speech therapy services disproportionately impacted those from low-income families compared to those from middle or higher-income homes.
Audiobooks and radio dramas narrated by famous actors and spoken-voice artists are also effective ways to develop English-speaking skills, so download or stream some now – be sure to read subtitles while listening so as to practice vocabulary and pronunciation skills!