Ten top tips to improve your child’s speech at home:-

• Make a list of the sounds your child is confusing  eg they say ‘tea’ for ‘sea’ so ‘s’ is confused.  They say ‘Jojjy’ for ‘lolly’ so ‘l’ is confused.
  
  
• Make sure they can hear the difference between the sounds they are confusing. Draw or print out some pictures of the words they confuse e.g. if confusing ‘s’ and ‘t’ words, use pictures such as tie, sand, sea, tea, soup, trainer etc. Ask them to put each picture in the correct box or pile, the ‘t’ box/pile or the ‘s’ box/pile.  Hearing the difference between the sounds is important before asking your child to use the sounds correctly.
  
  
• Helping your child know how to make the target sound is important.  It’s important they can say the sound on its own first before using it in a word. There are lots of videos with tips on how to help your child make the sounds ‘s’, ‘k’, ‘z’ and ‘t’ etc. Take time to ensure you know how to make these sounds yourself and the tips you can share with your child about how to make the sound. Have a practice making these sounds on their own first, as part of a little game, before you add the sound into short words.
  
  
• Once you’ve checked they can hear the difference (if they can’t, keep working on them, telling the words apart until they can) and that they can make the target sound on its own, you can now start working on saying the sounds in short words.
  
  
  • When starting to use the sounds, you only want words where the target sound ‘s’ is next to a vowel sound – ee, a, oo, ie, ai etc. The reason we say this, is because other consonant sounds can confuse their production. So ‘see’ is easier as a target word then ‘seen’ (because the ‘n’ influences how the ‘s’ might be made. Children pre-empt other sounds in the words. You can look for target lists on Google if you aren’t sure what consonant vowel target words to use, search ‘CV minimal pairs’ and you should find some useful target lists and pictures to use.
    
    
  • So if ‘s’ and ‘t’ are the problem sounds we need words with just vowels following the first consonant sound. These are the kind of CV lists you can look up to check you’re using consonant vowel words only.
    • Sea – tea
    • Sue – two
    • Sun – ton (of bricks)
      
      
  • Work on your child producing these target words by reminding them of how to make the consonant sound ‘s’ and the rest of the word ‘s’ ‘ea’ = sea. Try not to leave a gap between the consonant and the vowel say the whole word smoothly ‘sea’ without a gap. It’s important that words are used as the child would hear them in conversation.

• Once your child can use the sound in a short word – sea, sue, you can try using them in words where a consonant is on the end e.g. sand, seat, soup, sat. Note if your child’s pronunciation of the word changes, now they put another sound on the end. If it does, then stay at this stage and keep practicing by  playing little games with these target words.
  

• Using the sound in different positions in the word is important, so they can now use an ‘s’ at the beginning of the word , but not in the middle e.g. seesaw.  Find some target words which are known as ‘word medial’ position, by searching word medial ‘s’ words. This will give you a list of words to practice.
  

• Correcting your child’s speech, when your child is using these words in conversation, focus on correcting only the target words they have been working on rather than every sound. For example if you hear ‘I tea’ instead of ‘I see’ then model back the correct pronunciation ‘I see’ don’t emphasise the ‘s’ use it naturally. Don’t ask them to repeat it every time but always present back a good model of the sentence. If your child is feeling confident ask them to have another go, ‘ I see, can you have another try … I ……. let them fill in the gap’.
  

• Look out that your child doesn’t feel under pressure, it’s really important that your child doesn’t become worried or shy about speaking, we also want to monitor that your child doesn’t start repeating the sounds with tension (some might describe as a stutter) because they are feeling too much pressure when speaking. Always check that your child feels happy and comfortable about working on their speech with you. Avoid times when they are tired, or super excited, aim for a nice relaxed, calm  opportunity to work on them. 
  

• Talk to your child’s preschool setting if you are concerned. They will have lots of experience of what to expect in each age group. The SENCO in the setting will be able to assess your child to some degree and help you decide if some extra support is needed. 
  
  
• When should you seek help?  It’s always important to feel supported with your child’s speech, don’t sit in silence wondering how you can help them improve, there is plenty of support and advice out there. 
  
  
  • If your child is young you can speak to your health visitor or your GP if you have a planned visit. But you can refer your child directly to the NHS Speech and Language Therapy department, you don’t have to go through your GP. Search NHS Speech and Language Therapy department and your location on Google, to find your local department. If waiting lists feel too long, you can also approach a Private Speech and Language Therapy Service to arrange an assessment. www.asltip.co.uk is a good place to source a private speech therapy assessment.

If you need some help, why not contact one of our speech and language therapists, whose details you can find here.  Or you can use some of our online resources which you can find here.

If you require support from a Speech and Language Therapist or would like further questions answered call us on 0845 838 2921.