As a pediatric speech-language pathologist, I’m often asked about the best toys for boosting children’s language development–especially around the holidays. Toys are more than just fun; they can help language development by:
- encouraging communication
- building vocabulary, and
- nurturing social interactions.
By thoughtfully choosing toys that promote interaction and engagement, you can help your child develop essential language skills in a way that is fun and engaging.
For 2024, I am providing my favorite toys for language development, categorized by age group.
Birth to 12 Months: Toys for Early Communication
In the first year of life, your baby is absorbing language by watching, listening, and responding to your voice and facial expressions. Focus on toys that encourage interaction and sensory exploration.
Top Toys for Birth to 12 Months:
- Soft Books: Look for books with high-contrast images, flaps, textures, or mirrors. There is no need to worry about baby ripping out a page because they are indestructible. Use them to open and close the flap, make squeaking noises, name pictures, or play peek-a-boo games together.
- Rattles and Shakers: Babies can learn turn-taking and sound awareness by looking towards where the sound is coming from. As an added bonus, these work on early grasping skills, as well.
- Manhattan Toy Ball (also a great teething toy!)
- Rain Stick
- Rattle Socks
- Activity Gyms: These become home base when you and your baby are beginning to learn to play together. Lay toys in different corners to promote movement, practice making facial expressions in a mirror, or just lay around and narrate baby’s world.
- Cause and Effect Toys: Help baby develop early language sills by understanding that when they do something, something will happen in return. This is the skill they will need to start saying a word, so they understand something will happen in return.
Pro Tip: Use animated facial expressions in a mirror and parentese (an exaggerated sing-song voice) to engage your baby during play and build language skills.
1 to 2 Years: Encouraging First Words
Between 12 and 24 months, children are learning their first words and starting to put them together. Choose toys that build boost language development by encouraging naming, requesting, and imitating sounds.
Top Toys for 1 to 2 Years:
- Shape Sorters: Help children understand how objects fit in different spaces, use words such as “open”, “close”, and “help”, or introduce phrases such as “Where is it?”
- Vet Shape Sorter (we love that this one has little animals on it!)
- Doll House Shape Sorter
- Shape Sorter with Keys
- Simple Puzzles with Animals or Vehicles: Use animal sounds or action words while working on fine motor skills. You can also use sound effects to put the pieces in, such as “boom”, or “ta-da” when you get a piece in, and “uh-oh” when you don’t quite get it right.
- Lovevery Circle puzzle (12-15 month kit) or Vegetable Puzzle (15-18 month kit)
- Melissa and Doug Vehicle Puzzle
- Hide and Seek Puzzle with animals
- Stacking Toys: These promote problem-solving skills and patience, and give you an opportunity to model phrases like “up,” “down,” “more”, or “all done.”
- Spinning Rings
- Stacking Cups (I love that these have objects on the side that you can name or count)
- Push and Pull Toys: These are great for movement oriented children. You can incorporate verbs like “go,” “stop,” and descriptors like “fast” or “slow”, or work to fill and dump.
- Books with Simple Pictures: Provide opportunities for naming new objects and creating your own stories.
- Story of Pop/Rock/Rap: our favorite books for our little rock star
- Lovevery Books: real life and relatable scenarios
Pro Tip: Follow your child’s lead and repeat their attempts to name or request toys, adding a word or two to expand their utterances and build their language skills.
2 to 3 Years: Building Vocabulary and Simple Sentences
At this stage, children are becoming little chatterboxes! Toys that promote pretend play and open-ended exploration are ideal for sparking conversations. and building language skills.
At the time of writing this, we currently have an almost two-year-old, so these are the toys that are on our list this year.
Top Toys for 2 to 3 Years:
- Pretend Play Sets: Kitchen sets, doctor kits, or toolboxes allow children to practice role-playing and using new vocabulary.
- Kitchen (I have done a deep dive on kitchens and have finally settled on this classic)
- Vet Set
- Doctor Set
- Pretend Food Sets (but especially the taco and pizza!)
- Dollhouses and Figurines: Use these toys to model simple phrases like “She’s sleeping” or “He’s eating.” or to practice naming body parts and clothing items
- Magnetiles/Duplos: Great for problem solving and imaginative play. Together, you can use language to create new worlds and structure.
- Magna-tile Starter Set
- Magna-tile Race Tracks
- Duplo Fire Truck (or Recycling Truck)…we also have a vet set
- Train Set: A perennial favorite and something that can grow over time. Works on prepositions like “on”, “over”, “under” or next to.
- TinyLand Deluxe Set-I found this to be the best value.
- Story Books with Simple Pictures: Children at this age have short attention spans, but the ability to recall longer stories, so this is a great way to meet them where they are at.
Pro Tip: Offer choices to expand vocabulary. If your child asks for the truck, you can ask “red truck or blue truck?” to expand from 1 word to 2.
3 to 5 Years: Encouraging Storytelling and Problem-Solving
Preschoolers are ready to build on their growing vocabularies by combining sentences and telling stories. Toys that encourage creativity and problem-solving are especially helpful.
Top Toys for 3 to 5 Years:
- Play Camera: Allow your child to capture memories and tell you what they caught on film.
- Play Camera (I love that this one allows you to print pictures and is cheaper than Polaroid Film
- Polaroid Camera: can grow with time and it’s so fun to see the world through a child’s eyes
- Board Games: Simple games teach turn-taking and provide opportunities to describe actions, appearance of objects, and emotions.
- Costumes and Props: Encourage storytelling by acting out different scenarios, like being a firefighter or a chef.
- Dress-Up Set
- Sticker Scenes-take up less space, and can be used to fulfill the same purpose
- Art Supplies: Use crayons, markers, and clay to talk about colors, textures, and creations.
- Paint Sticks
- Kinetic Sand-can be used to make your own sensory boxes
- Rubber Stamp Kit
Pro Tip: Encourage your child to building language skills by narrating their play: “What are you building?” or “Tell me about your picture!”
Why These Toys Work for Language Development
The best toys for language development are open-ended, meaning they can be used in multiple ways to encourage creativity and communication. Avoid toys that “talk” or do all the work for your child; instead, choose options that require interaction and collaboration.
Maximizing Playtime for Language Growth
- Get Face-to-Face: Sit at your child’s level to maintain eye contact and make it easier for them to watch your mouth as you speak.
- Use Simple Language: Match your language to your child’s level, gradually increasing complexity as they grow.
- Follow Their Interests: Let your child choose what to play with, and join in on their fun. Always keep in mind how your child learns best.
- Pause and Wait: Give your child time to respond, whether it’s a sound, word, or gesture.
By choosing the right toys and using play as a foundation for language learning, you can help your child reach their full communication potential—all while having fun!
If you’re interested in more tips for language development or personalized support, check out my free resources here.
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