What My Son’s Nursery Teacher Said About His Speech (And What I Did Next)
I was half-listening, one hand on the buggy and the other rummaging for the lost wellie that had inevitably rolled under the coat rack. It was a standard Tuesday afternoon pickup, the usual chaos of toddlers shedding aprons and parents swapping tired smiles. That’s when his key worker, Sarah, leaned in with that specific, gentle tone adults use when they are about to deliver something they think might sting.
“We’ve noticed,” she said, “that Leo isn’t quite stringing words together like some of the others. He’s still using single words mostly. We just wanted to flag it so you can keep an eye on it at home.”
I laughed it off at the time. “He’s just lazy,” I said. “He points and I fetch. I’m training him well.”
But by the time we got home, the laugh had faded. The comment lodged itself in my brain like a splinter. I started listening to him differently. I noticed that while other children his age were doing complex things like, “Look, mummy, the big red lorry is stuck,” Leo was definitely talking—but it was all “car,” “go,” “milk,” and a lot of expressive pointing and grunting. He was communicating fine, I thought, but was he speaking fine?
For the next few days, I did what a lot of parents do: I went down a rabbit hole of internet forums. I read about speech regression, “glue ear,” and the dreaded “delayed milestones.” I sat with that anxiety for a while, the familiar feeling that I was somehow already failing at this parenting gig. But eventually, the practical side of my brain kicked in. I realized that the nursery’s comment wasn’t a verdict—it was an observation. And an observation, unlike a judgement, gives you a starting point.
So, instead of panicking or diving straight into formal assessments, I decided to make a few small shifts at home to see if we could gently encourage him.
The first thing we changed was how we talked to him. My husband and I had gotten very good at understanding Leo’s shorthand. He’d say “more” and we’d immediately top up his cup. He’d say “juice” and we’d hand it over. We were fluent in Leo. The problem was, he knew we were fluent, so why would he bother with full sentences? We started playing a little bit dumb. When he said “juice,” I’d say, “Do you want the red cup or the blue cup? Say ‘blue cup’.” I didn’t force it, but I gave him a reason to try a little harder. It felt unnatural at first, but it created a bridge between what he wanted and the words he needed to use.
We also re-evaluated the background noise. Like many homes, we had the TV on for most of the day, usually as a comforting hum. I realized that for a child with a developing auditory system, that constant hum is just mud. It’s hard to learn to discriminate specific sounds if there is a constant wall of noise. We made a rule: the TV goes off during lunch and for the first hour after nursery. In that quiet space, he started to vocalize more—filling the silence himself with babbling, attempts at songs, and single words. It was as if he needed the quiet to find his own voice.
The most effective change, though, was ditching the expectation of a “conversation” and leaning into narration instead. I stopped asking him so many questions—”What’s this? What did you do?”—which is ironically the default mode of every adult around a toddler. Questions can feel like pressure. Instead, I started narrating our small life in front of him. “I’m cutting the red apple. Now I’m putting the apple into the green bowl.” It felt a little ridiculous, like I was narrating a nature documentary. But it allowed him to hear sentence structure, prepositions, and vocabulary without the stress of having to respond. It was a low-stakes way for him to absorb language.
I also made a deliberate effort to look at his physical mouth. Often, speech delays are actually motor issues. It’s not that a child doesn’t know the word; it’s that the muscles in their mouth haven’t developed the strength to form the sounds. We blew bubbles. We used a straw to drink thick smoothies. We tried making silly faces in the mirror—stretching our lips wide for “ee” and rounding them for “oo.” These are zero-prep activities that just feel like playing, but they’re essentially physiotherapy for the mouth. I figured even if his vocabulary was fine, these exercises couldn’t hurt.
After about six weeks of these quiet adjustments, I noticed the change wasn’t so much in his vocabulary, but in his effort. He was attempting longer phrases, even if they came out jumbled and garbled. “Mummy sit” became “Mummy sit sofa.” He was stringing ideas together, not just labeling objects.
When I went to pick him up last Friday, Sarah caught my eye. I braced myself for more feedback.
“He’s just had a lovely day,” she said. “He was telling us all about the rabbit who ate the carrots in the garden. Not all the words are clear, but his confidence is coming on leaps and bounds.”
I didn’t get a diagnosis; I didn’t get a “fix.” I just got confirmation that the daily nudges were worthwhile. I still don’t know if we are “on track” or just “on our own curve.” We have a review with the health visitor next month, and I have a list of specific things to ask—not just, “Is he okay?” but specific things about his sound development—that I can now discuss because I have observed him closely.
The nursery comment stung at first, but it did exactly what these observations are supposed to do. It shifted my focus from what I expected Leo’s speech to be, to what it actually was, and what it needed in order to grow. The speech isn’t perfect now. It’s messy, often confusing, and sometimes still funny (his version of “spaghetti” is quite inventive). But the process is happening. For now, that feels like enough. We are just continuing the low-key narration, keeping the background noise down, and letting him take his time.
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