PRACTICING SPEECH SOUNDS
About practice worksheets: Parents play a very important role in improving speech and language skills. Studies have proven that parents may play the most important role. The key is to practice, practice, practice! It is important to remember some guidelines when practicing speech.
- Be patient. Your child is learning a new skill. Some have likened it to learning to play the piano. You need to practice many times in order to master this new skill.
- Short sessions are better for most children. Five to 10 minutes of work can make a significant difference.
- 20 good productions are better than 50 bad ones.
- Unless your Speech-Language Pathologist instructs you otherwise, you should work on only one sound or blend at a time.
- Resist the temptation to move to the next level before the prior level is mastered. If your child is working on a sound at the syllable level, it is tempting to see if he can do it in words and in many positions of words. But moving too quickly can cause frustration and confusion.
- It is important to produce a high number of correct repetitions in each session. This does not mean that the child needs to practice every word containing the target sound or even a large number of different words. Most students do not need more than 15-20 sample words (exemplars) in order to practice accurate productions. The goal is to practice the target sound and learn what the sound feels like and sounds like.
Speech sound practice: Click on the box below to select your sound!
Some children and parents become bored with using the same word lists for extended periods. In this case, a website containing word lists may be helpful.One very good site is Dictionary.com. This site allows the user to search for words that begin or end with a specific letter. This site not specifically for speech therapy. The lists on this site, and sites like it, are not screened for children and may contain a few words that some would find offensive so parents should assist children with these sites.
Scroll down the page and look for these boxes->
