Simple ideas for helping toddlers learn speech sounds

Simple Ideas for Helping Toddlers Learn Speech Sounds

My last post shows when a child should start saying certain sounds, so now what? Either you are comforted because your child is 3 and can’t say ‘L,’ but you know that it’s not a big deal, or they are close to the age of acquisition, and still don’t have the sound, and you are getting a bit worried. In this post I will give examples of a few ways you can help teach your toddler sounds they can't produce yet. Whether you are worried about a speech errors or not.

(*Try to use these methods well before your child is supposed to be able to make a sound they are struggling with, to give them lots of time to learn it.)

The kinder gentler method:

This method is to help teach your child the error sound without them being aware that you are, in fact, teaching them. In this method you model the sound for them in everyday conversations and interactions. Let’s say they are struggling with the L sound.(One example: “yap” instead of “lap”)

In your conversation you would emphasize the L sound that they are missing. Don’t over emphasize, or your child will catch on that you are correcting them, but add just enough that the sounds still sticks out just a bit. 

Here’s a written example.

Child: “Mommy yake?”                  

Parent: “Yes let’s go to the lake!”   

“What should we do at the lake?”

Child: “Pway in the sand?”             

Parent: “What should we play?”     

All you have to do is try to model the correct sound for them as much as you can and you have got it. However, try to keep your language simple, and do not overwhelm them with too many words. Remember that a good rule of thumb is if they are saying 2-3 word sentences try to keep your answers in 4-5 word sentences, to best foster their ability to understand what you are saying.

More obvious method:

Still a method where you can apply it to your day to day activities, but it differs from the first, because this method is more likely to make your child aware that you are correcting them. You do this by having the child try to say the word again when they have a speech error, or repeating the word they said to model the correct way to say the word.

eg. Child: “Doh!”                           eg. Child: “Tootie?”

     Parent: “Say go”                           Parent: “Cookie” 

     Child: “Doh!”                                (hands cookie to the child)

This is a commonly used by parents. Sometimes we repeat what they said, just because we aren't sure what they said. Other times it's because we want them to say the word properly. This is an easy method, but by doing it you are making your child aware that you are correcting them, which is fine, as long as they do not get self conscious of their speech errors, and stop trying to talk all together. My favourite method is the first kinder gentler method, because you still model the correct sound for your child without them being aware that you are correcting them, and they will still get that exposure to the correct sound.

                               Obvious method:

Sitting down in a closed environment where you specifically work on the speech sound. Similar to a teacher in a classroom.

Examples: 

• Flash cards that have the sound your child is struggling with.
• A game where you use the error sound a lot.
• Put a picture/word with the error sound on each piece of a puzzle, and have the child say the word before they can put that piece in the puzzle.
• Put together a mystery bag full of things that have the error sound in their name, and have your child name everything they pull out of the bag.
• Make a matching game with pictures that have the error sound in the name of the pictures.

• *This kind of environment is often done with a Speech Pathologist, who's profession is based on how to teach your child to produce the sounds properly. Safest bet for parents, without guidance from an SLP on how to specifically elicit sounds, is to model, model, model.

The most obvious way of targeting a sound is using flash cards, it gives your child lots of exposure in a short amount of time, this can help, but why not play a game that helps them practice saying the correct sound while having fun. Plus playing a game will likely help them be able to sit and learn for a longer period of time. Remember always model the correct sound whenever they make an error. You do not want to reinforce the error. The object of the game is for you to give them as much exposure to the correct sound as possible. The more they hear the correct sound, the more likely they are to be able to produce it. 

Remember be good models, show them the correct way to make the sound by doing it correctly yourself. Keep up the good work!