Receptive Language Activities
Build strong listening skills with these receptive language activities.
For a quick review, receptive language refers to a person’s ability to understand language.

When discussing receptive language, there are 4 main areas to consider:
- Ability to following directions
- Understanding questions
- Understanding grammar
- Vocabulary
Personally, I don’t love separating expressive language skills with receptive language skills since they are so intertwined. Also, there could be multiple reasons why a child may have difficultly understanding language.
HOWEVER, most speech pathologists, teachers, and standardized tests talk about receptive language skills as a separate entity. Therefore, I created games that target receptive language.
Click here to learn more about receptive language skills and language development in general. It is a great idea to learn how all language skills build on each other. Once you are done learning, don’t forget to come back and learn fun ways to work on receptive language for all ages!
Receptive Language Activities
Below are activities that target receptive language skills.
- This is one of my favorite pages!
- Learn about what WH questions actually are
- Learn why WH questions are SO important
- Find fun ways to work on WH questions throughout the day
- Find games for toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary-age students
- Examples to illustrate games and skills
- Foster listening skills through play
- Top 5 games that can be adapted for any age
3. Following Directions Worksheets
- Worksheets to target each concept area
- Strong working memory is one skill needed for receptive language
- Learn about working memory
- Learn how to practice working memory skills
- Find games to play to practice compensations for memory skills
5. Games with Household Objects
- Each of the free therapy pages using household objects have games to target following directions skills
- Find something that will interest your child!
- Learn about the difference between spatial, temporal, multi-step and basic directions
- If a child can't follow directions, prepositions may be to blame
- Learn how to target prepositions using evidence-base strategies
- Grab therapy ideas!
- Remember, to have strong receptive language skills, a child needs to have strong syntax, semantics, morphology, phonology, and pragmatic language skills!
- Explore hundreds of pages of materials broken down by age!
- Learn how to functionally support your child’s speech and language development throughout the day
- Print activities and visual supports
ONE YEAR OF FREE Materials To Support Receptive Language Skills
Do you need one year of FREE speech and language materials that can be used easily to support receptive language learning?
Yes? Then, fill out the form below and they are yours.