GAMES TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS

What are communication skills games?

Communication games and activities are age-specific playful tasks for children which aim at developing verbal, non-verbal and visual skills. Regularly practicing these could help you brush up your child’s communication skills.

How do they help?

Language communication skills, oral and written, have become all the more important for today’s kids and these skills seem to have quite a significant influence on their personalities. Methods like storytelling, games and activities are highly productive. Some of the basic communication skills like establishing eye-contact, speaking clearly and avoiding interruptions can be improved through these games and activities.

Some fun communication games:

1. Chinese Whisper: A group game that develops good listening skills. It’s a great idea for your child’s birthday party where all the friends gather together.

· Make the kids sit in a circle close enough to whisper in each other’s ear.

· Start with a simple sentence.

· As the game begins, one child whispers a message to the other beside him/her.

· The process will continue until all the kids are done whispering to one next to them.

· Once the message reaches the last kid, ask him/her to say it aloud. It will be fun to hear what message has actually reached them.

2. Point and tell:

This is a great verbal communication game. In this interactive game, the child speaks five to six lines on a random object.

· The object could be anything basic, like his/her favourite dress, his/her room, or a toy. This activity also helps in practicing the correct pronunciation of words.

3. Picture storytelling: Children love narrating stories as much as they love listening to one.

· For this interesting activity, provide some pictures to the child, based on which he/she will make up a story.

· This activity helps your child process visual cues and then speak. The child also has to arrange the pictures in a sequence in which he/she wants to narrate the story.

4. Emotional charades: This game helps your child fine-tune their communication abilities using facial expressions.

· Take a few chits and write different expressions on them. For younger kids, you can even speak out the emotion.

· The expressions should be age-specific, like ‘Make a happy face for me,’ ‘Show me a surprised face,’ Your expression when you lost your favourite toy,’ ‘how do you do an angry face,’ etc.

· Each child gets to do the expression while speaking is not allowed.

5. Identify the described: This game helps enhance your child’s comprehension and interpretation skills.

· To play, you would need about four to five children. Blindfold one child and an object to the rest.

· Now all the children will describe one characteristic each of the item. The blindfolded child has to guess the item by understanding the cues.

Improvement in a child’s communication happens gradually. It is a sensitive growth and you can hand-hold your child and help them master their interpersonal skills with such games where you have fun and learn while bonding with each other. Engage in more games and activities that would help your child with fun and ease.