Speech and Language Therapy
Activities to develop: Speech Sound Awareness Skills
If a child is finding some sounds in words tricky to say the following activities will help
them become more aware of the sounds in words which in turn will help develop their
pronunciation.
Songs, rhythm and rhyme
Singing nursery and action rhymes with your child is a fun a really important
way of developing a child’s speech and language development. There are many
books, CDs and videos available. The library may well have some that you can
borrow. Try to sing the same songs on a daily basis so the child gets to know
the tune and words. Sing in the bath, in the car, walking down the road etc.
It’s also fun to accompany the song with a shaker/tambourine/drum or
clapping. If you don’t have these you can use a saucepan and wooden spoon or
bead in a jar etc.
Dance, sway, clap, stamp your feet, skip alongside any music and encourage
your child to join in with you. Music with a strong beat is best.
When a child is familiar with a nursery rhyme miss out the end rhyming word
or say the wrong word e.g ‘Humpty dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty
had a great ……’ OR ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a
great ball.’ See if your child can fill in the missing word or correct the
mistake.
Read short poems and picture books that have a rhyming story to your child.
Read the same ones again and again so they get to know then and can start
joining in the story with you. The library can help you find these sorts of
books
Make up silly rhyming names either to match the children’s name sor a pair of
puppets e.g Kim, Sim, Bim or Riley, Miley, Smiley etc. Encourage the children
to make up rhyming strings. They do not need to make real words e.g. fanana,
banana, boggy doggy etc
Listening Games – Using non speech sounds
Guess the instrument – choose two sets of matching noisemakers/instruments.
These may include shakers, bells, drums made of saucepans and wooden sppons
etc. Let your child play with the instruments and listen to the sounds they make.
Describe the sounds. Are they loud or quiet? Hide one set of the instruments
Review: Summer 2016
behind a screen and a matching set in front of your child. Play one of the
instruments behind the screen and see if your child can show you which one you
played. Play two instruments one after the other –either the same instrument or
two different ones. Can your child tell you if the instrument were the same of
different. Gradually increase the number of instruments to choose from and see
if your child can remember a sequence of two or three sounds.
Hunt the music box – hide a music box or musical toy somewhere in the room
while your child waits outside the room. Ask them to find the toy by locating
the sound.
Other game ideas – play games that encourage good waiting, turn taking and
listening. These could include the following:
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Play ‘ready steady go’ with wind up cars, marble runs or pop up toys.
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Copy beats on a drum
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Match sounds to pictures e.g. animal noises. Sound lotto sets are
commercially available
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Play musical statues, musical islands/chairs etc
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Listen to environmental sounds e.g. washing machine, hoover, and car. Can
the children match the sound to the object?
Listening to the sounds at the beginning of words.
Start with words that only have one or two distinctive sounds at the beginning.
For example ‘s’ and/or ‘d’. Show the letter sounds s and d. using objects in the
room, toys, pictures or people’s names that start with that sound say the words
and see if your child can point to which sound they heard.
Point out and say the words that start with the same sound and exaggerate the
first sound e.g sssspoon, ssssaucepan, ssssarah. At other times in the day try to
point out other words that start with ‘s’ e.g. soap, sun etc. (think carefully about
the sound of the word not its spelling e.g shelf begins with a ‘sh’ sound not ‘s’)
As your child becomes more familiar with this sound, start to introduce one or
two more sounds. You can then play pairs or odd one out type games using
objects or pictures e.g. car, cup , bus. Which ones start with the same sound?
If your child finds it difficult saying a particular sound don’t try to make them
say it but just say the words clearly so they hear a good model.
Listening to mistakes
Listening to other people make mistakes helps children to monitor their own
speech. This activity is more fun if you can use a toy or puppet e.g. a teddy
Review: Summer 2016
Use a selection of toys or everyday objects. You talk for teddy and name the
toys but explain that teddy sometimes says the word right and sometimes
wrong. When you say the word incorrectly miss out the first sound or replace it
with a different sound e.g. if the word was pig call it a ‘gig’ or a ‘pit’. Ask the
child to give you a thumbs up or down if teddy said the word correctly or not.
However do not ask the child to correct you/teddy as they may not be able to
say it right. Instead correct teddy/yourself by saying ‘silly teddy, the word is
pig not gig’ and slightly exaggerate the first sound.
Syllable Clapping
Syllables are like beats in a word
Cat has 1 syllable
El bow has 2 syllables
Di no saur has 3 syllables
Cat er pi llar has 4 syllables
Collect a range of toys/objects and/or people’s names and clap put the syllbales
in them. When your child gets the hang of this you could see if they can select
an object by the number of claps you do. For example if you do two claps they
would need to choose a toy/object with two claps e.g. bubbles, teddy etc.
Talking About Sounds
Use a range of musical instruments and describe the sounds they make using
words such as loud/quiet, long/short, high/low, slow/fast etc.
Use instruments in stories in different ways e.g. drum for a giants footsteps, a
quiet bell for a fairy etc
Vary the volume/pitch of your voice when telling stories and describe the way
you speak. Encourage the children to experiment with their own voices in the
same way.
Play ‘squeak piggy squeak’ and tell the children to try and disguise their voice by
‘squeaking’ in a funny voice.
Review: Summer 2016