Building Language with Free Play

I have an amazing group of PreK students that I serve on my campus. One group in particular, my group of 4-four year old boys, taught me all about being flexible this week. Like so many other days, I had a specific lesson planned, the book picked out, manipulatives ready and my outline of my IEP-driven lesson planned out. When those boys, however, walked in my room, they quickly reminded me that they had already done "work" in the classroom and wanted to PLAY. I heard the words, "Can we play instead?" Who am I to argue with the requests of 4 year olds to play?

Free Play is child-centered, and students choose the activity and direct the play. Free play elicits problem-solving skills, fosters social-emotional development, and allows for creative thinking to flourish.



In free play, the child chooses the activity, determines to function of the objects and directs the episodes during play. The clinician in this setting provides appropriate cuing and scaffolding to elicit skills targeted in student IEPs.

I didn't plan this lesson, and I didn't have goals picked out for play dough. But as a seasoned SLP,  I knew that this activity had the potential to be a language-rich experience. It was my job to shape, scaffold, elicit and model target language skills during their play-based therapy session. I found it was also a great opportunity to record their language and take data during spontaneous conversations.

Here are a few of the goals that were targeted during this session:

• describing by color, shape, size, features, and attributes

• same/different

• following 1 and 2 step directions

• first/next

• before/after

• location-on top/next to/beside/under/behind

• counting 1:1 up to 10

• answering yes/no questions

• answering questions (How many? Which one? Where? What? Why? Who?)

• Comparative Adjectives (big/bigger/biggest, small/smaller/smallest)

• Category Inclusion/Exclusion (which one has/which one does not have)

• Positions-Upside down, In/Out

• Animal Body Parts (tail, wings, feet, claws, teeth, spikes, etc.)

• Opposites-long/short, big/little, fat/skinny, in/out, up/down

• Pronouns-his/him, mine/yours

• Pragmatics-sharing, requesting, commenting, asking & answering, eye contact, denying, politely refusing, inquiring, negotiating, proximity control

• problem-solving (what should I do next?)

• expanding MLU, using grammatically correct simple and expanded utterances

• using specific referents (Instead of "that one")

• sustained attention to task

• body in the group and whole body listening

• transitioning between tasks

Part of being a great clinician is being flexible. "Go with the flow" and allow for those authentic moments to occur. You will see the fruits of your labor, those carryover skills in action, language occurring naturally and you will be pleasantly surprised.

Lisa, SLP 

Subscribe to our Newsletter to Receive my TIER 2 Vocabulary FREEBIE

Email Address

First Name