Expressive Language Prompts

Encouraging Expressive Language with Structured Prompts

Expressive language prompts give children a starting point for practicing vocabulary use, sentence formulation, and narrative skills. Unlike closed questions that require a single-word answer, these open-ended prompts encourage children to produce longer utterances, use descriptive vocabulary, and organize their thoughts into connected speech.

This worksheet contains a set of expressive language prompts organized by skill level. Beginning prompts focus on labeling and simple descriptions (“Tell me about this picture” and “What do you see?”). Intermediate prompts target sentence-level responses (“Tell me what is happening and why”). Advanced prompts elicit narrative-level language (“Tell me a story about…” and “What would happen if…?”). SLPs can select the appropriate level for each student and progress through the levels as skills develop.

Tips for Speech-Language Pathologists

Scaffolding Responses

When a student gives a minimal response, use expansion and extension techniques to model a longer answer. If a student says “A dog,” respond with “Yes, I see a big brown dog. He looks like he is running to the park. What do you think the dog is doing?” Then encourage the student to try again with more detail.

Building Narrative Skills

For students working on narrative language, use the prompts as story starters. Help the student include story grammar elements: who is in the story, where it takes place, what happens first, what the problem is, and how it gets resolved. Graphic organizers with these elements can provide additional visual support.

Home Practice

This worksheet is well suited for homework. Encourage caregivers to choose one or two prompts per day and have a conversation about them during a calm, focused time such as after dinner or before bed. Remind caregivers that the goal is to encourage communication, not to correct every error. Praising effort and asking follow-up questions builds confidence and motivation.