Hints for Working on Speech at Home

Set aside 15-20 minutes a day to work on speech sounds. Let your child know that they are focusing on correct sound production during this time. This can be during an established homework time or it can be during a time that you already have a lot of conversation and interaction such as a meal time or a story time.

If you are reading to your child, encourage them to repeat words with the target sound after you have read them.  If the child is reading, let them reach the end of the page and then go back over words on that page that have the target sound.  Encourage them to read slowly and make good sounds on the first try.

When you are working on drill with individual words, start with words that have the sound at the beginning.  These are usually easiest for the child to learn.  Then move to words that have the sound in the middle or the end.  Target words that have the sound in a cluster (such as scratch if you are targeting /s/) last.  Repeat each word up to 10 times total and then challenge the child to use the word in a sentence.

You can find words with the target sound in books, on internet resources, or you can have your child make up their own list of words with the target sound.  These can be names of people, pets, favorite foods, TV shows/characters, etc.  Playing “I spy” for things with the target sound can also be fun.

When your child is doing well with sounds in words, move up to sounds in sentences. These can be sentences the child creates, tongue twisters, or repeated sentences that you have created.

From sentences, you can move into working on sounds in reading passages and using the sounds in conversation.  This is a natural progression for the child to go through. 

Be creative!  You can incorporate speech practice into regular homework.  If a child is learning spelling words or definitions for vocab, you can practice sounds while learning the spelling and definitions.  If a child has a presentation, practice reading it at home with good sounds.