practicing speech & language skills at home

ACTIVITIES

Working on Speech & Language at Home

It is important for families to spend time each day with their child practicing speech and developing better language and communication skills. Refer to your child's IEP, which lists their goals. This will give you an idea of what we are working on in speech/language therapy. If you have more questions about your child's speech/language/communication goals, please contact me! I would love to talk to you more and discuss ways you can help your child at home. Parents are such an important part of a child's speech and language growth...no one influences them more than you!

FINDING THE TIME

Life is so busy, and your kids already have so much homework to do to help them develop their reading and math skills. I get that! But just as building their academic skills is important, so is building their communication skills! Having anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes a day to focus on speech/language practice at home will help your child make progress more quickly. It doesn't have to be "homework" to be good practice, and your child will love the special attention of time to talk to you one-on-one. Plus, you can practice speech and language skills while doing things that are part of your normal routine! Keep reading for some ideas on how you can use your daily life to practice speech and language skills.

Let's Just Talk.

Having conversations with your child helps build their speech and language skills. Ask them questions, but also encourage them to ask questions as well. Make comments on the things they say and that others say to model appropriate turn taking and conversational exchanges. Encourage your child to stay on topic during conversations. Model ways to transition to topics.

Work it into your normal routine!

SHOPPING

Work on speech and language skills while grocery shopping by hunting for items that have your child's speech sound or describing them with words with your sound. Play "I Spy" to work on descriptive language. Label and categorize items in the store as you walk through. Let your child help read the shopping list and mark things off.

COOKING

Just like shopping, cooking is a great way for kids to work on developing their language skills. Reading a recipe, following your directions, math vocabulary to measure...let the kids help in the kitchen! It's great for their learning!

PLAYING

Children learn best by playing...it's just that simple! Whether their playing with sticks and rocks or baby dolls, cars, and Legos, engaging with your child and talking to them is a great way to help them build their language. Let them take the lead, don't ask them a ton of questions, and just provide narration to give examples of language to their playing. Practice speech sounds while keeping things light, (e.g. "The words "roll" and "car" have your /r/ sound...let's race while we say "Roll the car, roll the car," ten times!").

MOVING

Help kids work on listening comprehension and following directions while being active at the same time! For example, play Simon Says or turn on some music and call out dance moves. Use adverbs to describe how you want them to move (e.g. "Spin quickly," "Sway slowly,).

PRACTICE Speech & Language Skills by REading!

Reading is already something that University Place encourages our students to do every day at home. In the summer, the public library is a great place for fun (air conditioned) activities for children. You can work on speech and language skills during your daily reading time all year long. Here are some ideas:

READ A BOOK

SPEECH: Some wonderful people have compiled lists of children's books that are organized by particular speech sounds that they contain a lot of repetitions of, which I have linked for you here: One. Two. Three. However, you can use any book or other reading material to work on their speech goals. Be on the lookout for words that contain their target sound(s).

LANGUAGE: Talk with your child about what they are reading. Ask them questions about the characters, setting, events. Ask them to retell the story with a beginning, middle, and end. Help them identify the main idea and the author's purpose for writing this piece. Be on the lookout for vocabulary words or figures of speech that they might not already know.

READ THE NEWS

SPEECH: For big kids that can read chapter books, magazines, and newspapers, have your child do a word hunt for words that that contain their sound(s). "How many words with /r/ can you find on this page?" "See if you can find 5 words with /sh/ in this news article!"

LANGUAGE: Pick out an article your child would find interesting and have them read it. Discuss the article with them after they have read it. What was the main idea? Why do you think the author wrote this? What were the important details?

FREE BOOKS ON YOUR DEVICE

Did you know that our district provides all our students with access to FREE e-books? You can access them on almost any device, so you and your child can read on the go on a phone, tablet, or computer! Your student can use their ClassLink login to access all their free TCS online libraries and learning platforms.

click here to Check out twenty 5-minute speech therapy activities you can try at home.

Check out our Activities Page for more speech, language, fluency, and literacy activities.

Please note, the information on this site is by no means exhaustive or fully comprehensive! These are just a few tips and resources to help you along the way. For more information, please speak to your child's speech-language pathologist or other related professional.

Header image by Markus Spiske via Pexels.

Emoji artwork is provided by EmojiOne and is licensed under CC-BY 4.0

Report abuse