WHY SPEECH HOMEWORK IS IMPORTANT!
A key ingredient in the development of your child’s speech and language is – YOU! Daily home activities can provide numerous opportunities for you and your child to improve his or her speech and language skills. Please make sure that you are completing the speech homework activities with your child weekly. Working on speech skills at home, and in various settings outside of the speech room, helps your child to reinforce and carry over the skills into everyday activities. Working together, we can make progress toward achieving the skills necessary for your child to be a successful learner and communicator!
Home practice does not need to be a major time commitment on your part, but it is important to reinforce what is learned in speech sessions. We ask parents to try for 15 minutes a day, but even five or 10 minutes every day will benefit your child. A quiet conversation at bedtime can be a productive, yet calming, nighttime ritual for parent and child!
Hints For Working With Your Child At Home
Working with your child at home can be challenging. It is important to create a positive and fun atmosphere for "speech time" at home. Involve your child in making materials and games. Have them choose the first activity or days/times you will practice. Charts and stickers motivate some children. Feel free to develop a reinforcement tool that works for your child.
Try not to "punish" wrong responses. The major point is to encourage and reward your child's efforts and cue them so that they can produce the word correctly. Some ways to do this are:
Modeling: Demonstrate how to make the sound for your child. Describe how you make the sound - where to put your tongue, lips, teeth, etc.
Verbal Cueing: "Is that word incorrect production or correct production?"
"Nice try! Remember to..."
"Is that word _____? Let me hear it again." Use the incorrect production to see if they will hear the mistake and correct it themself.
"I like the way you made your _____ sound!"
Non-verbal Cueing: Point to the part of the mouth that you use to produce the sound.
Make up a secret signal or gesture that you can use to remind your child to correct the sound without saying it aloud (thumbs up, tap on the arm, tug your ear, etc.)
Here are some fun, easy ways to practice your child's sound(s) at home. Even five minutes per day will encourage generalization and improve your child's success with his/her target sound(s)!
1. Take a sound walk; walk with your child through the neighborhood, a park or a shopping center. Tell your child to look for things with his/her target sound and make them.
2. The fishing game can be used for any sound. Attach a string with a magnet to a stick. Have small picture cards of the child's target sound. Put a paper clip or staple at the top of the picture. Have you child try to "catch fish" and name each one.
3. On three small paper bags, paste a word or picture card of an object with the target sound - one in the beginning, one in the middle, and one in the final position (if the sound is S, you might have a sun, a castle, and a dress). The child selects a card or picture, says that word, and then drops it into the bag that matches the sound position.
4. Find and cut out pictures from magazines, newspapers or coloring books. Make a sound collage by gluing all of the pictures with your child's target sound onto one page.
5. Visit the public library with your child. Have him/her select books that might have characters with names that begin with your child's target sound. As you read the story, have your child name those characters using his/her sound correctly.
6. Any board game can be used for carry-over. Before your child takes a turn, spins the spinner, or rolls the dice, have him/her say a word with the target sound five times.
7. A trip to the grocery store is a great time for sound practice. Ask your child to spot food or product names throughout the store with his/her target sound. As he/she names what they find, have him/her use that word in a sentence!
8. If your child enjoys talking to relatives on the telephone, use that time as an opportunity to reinforce clear speech. Explain that it is especially important to correct his/her speech sounds so that the listener can understand his/her message. If necessary, practice what your child will say before he/she speaks.
9. When eating out, have your child search for his/her sound on the menu. Have him/her rehearse what they would like to order, and have him/her use his/her best speech to tell the server what he/she would like!
10. Flip through pictures or photo albums (children LOVE to look at their baby pictures!). Have your child name who is in each picture and what that person is doing. Encourage clear speech and correct your child's production of his/her target sound as you enjoy looking at each snapshot.
11. Cut up their target words and hide them around the house. Have them go on a scavenger hunt for their words or to find objects containing their words. This activity is even more fun in the dark using a flashlight!
12. Use their homework (for reading, math, science, social studies) to reinforce correct production of their sounds.
Some fun ways to reinforce your child's ability to listen, remember, follow directions, and interact:
1. Play 20 questions.
2. Play "Simon Says"
3. Have your child help out in the kitchen - have him/her follow simple directions for making a recipe.
4. Help your child follow two- and three-step directions: "Go to your room, and bring me your book."
5. Offer a description or clues, and have your child identify what you are describing: "We use it to sweep the floor" (a broom). "It is cold, sweet, and good for dessert. I like strawberry" (ice cream).
6. Continue to build vocabulary. Introduce a new word and offer its definition, or use it in a context that is easily understood. This may be done in an exaggerated, humorous manner. "I think I will drive the vehicle to the store. I am too tired to walk."
7. Work on forming and explaining categories. Identify the thing that does not belong in a group of similar objects: "A shoe does not belong with an apple and an orange because you can't eat it; it is not round; it is not a fruit."