Reflect back what your child has said. When doing this, try to match his sentence length fairly closely. For example, if your two-year-old child says "cookie," first respond with something like "cookie" or "yes, cookie." If your four-year-old says "Can I have a cookie?" say something like "Yes, you can have a cookie" rather than just "yes."
Avoid single-word answers. Answers like "yes" or "no" may be quick and easy, but they do not promote good language and conversation.
Extend on what your child has said. After reflecting back what your child has said, extend on it by increasing the sentence length and complexity. For example, after saying "yes, cookie" say "let's get a cookie and a glass of milk."
Add information to what was said. Added information helps to increase a child's range of vocabulary and information. It also models a more complex sentence structure and conversational responses. For example, after telling your four-year-old that she can have a cookie with a glass of milk, ask her if she would like something different to drink or tell her that the cookies are freshly baked.
Use bridges to extend conversations. Young children may be looking for a response from their parent and not for a conversation; however, bridges will help to extend a single answer into a conversation. A bridge could be to ask why, when or where something happened. Language extension could also use conversational bridges like "remember when ..." or "what if ..."
Use language extension to model conversation skills in a variety of everyday situations. School, friends, the dinner menu or family plans are just some examples of things that occur every day that are opportunities for conversation development.