35+ Best Toys to Help Toddlers Speech and Language

This post is all about toys to help toddlers talk.

As parents, we naturally worry about a lot of things – is my child growing well, are they developing correctly, are they gaining the important skills they need to learn? A big question parents ask themselves is what they can do to help their toddler’s speech development as well as their child’s language development.

This post aims to help you find great tools to help your toddler develop communication skills in a fun way, whether that’s to help support a speech delay/language delays, to help them build social skills, or just to help build your child’s vocabulary.

Me personally, I think about this topic a little bit extra because in addition to being a mom, I’m also a speech therapist. Because of this, I’ve had a lot of friends come to me asking questions about what is and isn’t normal with child speech and language development, what is the difference between a typical child and late talkers, and the best tools and toys to help their toddler and young children talk and build language skills.

Disclaimer: If you have any concerns with your child being a late talker, struggling with social interaction for their age range, or if your child’s speech is very difficult to understand, the best thing you can do is to advocate for your child to get evaluated for speech therapy.

Speech therapists, who are otherwise known as speech-language pathologists (po-tay-to, po-tah-to), are highly trained in speech and language development and often specialize in early intervention specifically for your child’s age range. Each state has different resources available so this isn’t a costly evaluation and they will be able to tell you specifics on the best ways to support your child, even if they test within normal development!

While I encourage you to see a speech therapist if you are at all concerned that your child might not be meeting their speech and language milestones, here are some broad and general tips for encouraging your toddler’s speecj and language skills:

General Tips and Strategies

1. Narrate what you do throughout the day.

Even if it seems like your child isn’t paying attention, they absorb a lot of their understanding of language based on what they are exposed to! This can include things like getting dressed, preparing food, buckling them into their car seat, etc. You can almost create verbal routines where your toddler hears the same phrases over and over!

2. Read to your child.

There is strong research to show that reading to your child regularly and frequently will greatly increase the number of words they are exposed to, which has a strong positive long-term effect on things like speech, language, literacy, academic performance, etc.

3. Focus on emphasizing action words, not just nouns or labels.

Some action words we use a ton in our house are things like “buckle”, “Up please!”, “Down please!”, “zip zip zip” (like with her pajamas), “flush” (every time she hears the potty), “crash!”, “Let’s go go go”. etc.

4. Try incorporating baby signs.

Even just learning a few basic signs and using them frequently with your child can help them be more successful in communicating what they want and decreasing frustration along the way. Some basic ones I started with included more, please, food, milk, and all done. Just being able to communicate these basic concepts will really help.

Ok, enough of the serious stuff, let’s talk all about…

The best toys to help toddlers talk!

This post contains affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you.

Mr. Potato Head

The Mr. potato head toy is a great way to encourage interactive play with others, such as playfully taking turns to choose what part they will put on him next, as well as parallel play alongside other children (also an important skill). That’s why you will find this to be one of a speech therapist’s favorite toys that they often use during therapy.

Baby Dolls & Imaginative Play

Baby dolls are a great toy to help toddlers to practice treating another person with empathy, acting out the way their parent might be taking care of a sibling, and can be a fun way to help them learn the names of body parts. I know my daughter thinks it is particularly hilarious if we pretend her baby doll has very stinky toes. This can be a great way to start building imaginative play skills! Here are some great recommendations:

Cause & Effect Toys

These toys help a child start to understand that when they complete an action, there is often a reaction. This is very engaging for toddlers which is why it can be so helpful to teach them fun action words! So often we focus on the labels of items when really working on verbs (action words) can be a great way to encourage your child’s language development. These active toys will definitely hold your child’s interest!

Open-Ended Toys

You might think noisy toys would be the toys that help toddlers talk, but open-ended toys, such as magnatiles and wooden blocks, are a fantastic way to encourage them to communicate with you. You can practice a lot of new words that are action-oriented like “up up up!” (when you’re building) and then “crash!” when they come tumbling down.

Water Table

Water tables are a fun toy that can act as great motivators because for kid’s, playing in water can be a favorite activity. You can have a great time while narrating your play using words like “splash! The water went down down down!”

Bath Time Toys

Along the same line, bath time toys can be a great opportunity for them to use those action focused words with a sensory experience.

Shape Sorter Toys

Shape Sorters are a great way to help your child develop their fine motor skills along side their speech skills. You can practice phrases like “put in” along side learning different colors and shapes. There are a ton of different ways you can use these. Along the same lines, puzzles are *technically* shape sorters as well!

Farm Set

Farm sets are a great way to encourage your child’s vocabulary by utilizing imaginative play while learning the names of different animals and animal sounds. Oftentimes, the sounds animals make might be easier to learn before their actual names! My daughter often calls horses “neigh neighs” and that is perfectly fine! They will eventually understand the different between the animal names and the sounds they make and this absolutely counts as functional communication.

Kitchen Set

Kitchen sets are a great way to encourage social play. Food, cooking, eating – these are a big part of our culture and socializing so encouraging children to pretend to cook, feed you a meal, etc can support them learning to communicate more.

Along the same lines, another great option is the Melissa & Doug Cleaning set! This set is so cute and your kids will come following along and doing the household chores beside you. Narrate as you go!

Doll House & Little People Toys

Along the same lines as the kitchen set, a doll house (we especially love the Little People one listed below) is a great activity to encourage social and pretend play.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles Toys

Kids LOVE anything that has wheels and goes! I especially like to work on what sounds the different vehicles make – think like “beep beep” “choo choo” – these sounds are easier for little ones to make than saying their actual name.

Best Books

Books are one of the best ways to encourage your toddler to talk. For one, they encourage something called joint attention, meaning they are joining you in paying attention to the same thing. This is really important socially.

It can also be helpful to utilize books that incorporate real pictures and simple words. The 100 First Words books are a great tool for teaching toddlers a single word at a time and increasing their vocabulary.

Another parent favorite is Brown Bear Brown Bear – my daughter has really been able to start to understand colors, names of animals, AND is starting to understand the concept of using a color to describe something which has encouraged her to start to put 2 words together more consistently.

Sensory Toys

Toys such as Play Dough and bubbles can be another great motivator to help your child practice saying those first words! You can encourage them to say, or sign, “more!” in order to get more bubbles going! These high motivation toys are really effective.