Today I want to share some really easy, practical speech and language/listening and spoken language activity ideas that you can do with your child today, with a resource you probably already have–photos on your phone.

By using your personal photos, not only are you working on your child’s goals, but you also create connection between you and your child, and the people and places that are important in your lives.

Here are 5 ways you can use those photos today to work on different listening and language goals.

1. Names of Important People and Places

If you’re at the beginning of your child’s listening journey, you can use your photos to tell them all about the people who are important in your lives. You can name the photos on your phone, maybe saying “This is your brother Simon,” or “Here’s our dog Archie,” and also describe the people in the photos, maybe saying “Your dad really likes to go fishing, and here he is holding a giant fish he caught.”

For children who are starting to talk, learning to say “Mom,” “Dad,” “Grandma,” or sibling’s names is important and a fun way to connect. If you go to the same places often, like daycare or the library, take a few photos so you can start learning the names of those as well.

2. Creating 2 Word Phrases, or Longer Sentences

I love using photos as prompts when children are starting to put words together. You can ask your child what they see in the photo, or if you want to make it even more authentic, take some photos of an activity or some time you spend together, and have your child show it to someone else, maybe another parent or a friend.

You can adapt this easily depending on the child’s language level. At the beginning, they might be putting a couple of words together like “Feed. Doggy,” and as they get more proficient something like “I feed dog” or “I’m feeding the dog his dinner.”

3. Verb Tenses

Photos lend themselves so easily to work on verb tenses. Especially if you use a feature that lets you look back on photos in the past, like Timehop or Facebook memories. You and your child can discuss what happened a long time ago and then compare it to the present, maybe saying something like “You WERE a baby then! You SAT in a high chair. Now you SIT at the big table and EAT the same food we do.”

4. Retell Stories

Retelling a story is a task that students are asked to do all the time in school, and one that kids with hearing loss sometimes struggle with. By practicing this skill early and often, we give kids a head start on understanding story structure, remembering details, and so much more.

One of the ways I really like to use photos for this is to get photos from an event that you weren’t at…that way your child needs to explain to you what was going on. They have the visual of the photo to help them, and you can help them by starting them off with prompts like “What happened first?” or “Where were you?”

5. Listening Games

When we’re working on listening and spoken language, photos are great for playing listening games. You can show your child a few photos, and then tell them you’re going to describe one, and see if they can listen and understand which one you’re talking about. Once you’ve had a turn, switch it up and let them use their describing skills. If they’re slightly more skilled at listening, you could do the same task, but not show them the pictures ahead of time. Instead, tell them you’re going to describe a picture for them, and see if they can guess what’s happening in it.