If your child is working with a speech therapist on speech sound goals, then you have likely been asked to practice with your child at home. Home practice is important for helping your child make progress with their speech goals and to help them generalize skills they have learned in therapy.
Some questions you may have about home practice could be: What does home practice look like? How long should we practice for? What if my child won’t sit at the table with me? How do I even find the time for that!?
This blog post will help to answer all those questions and get you started with how to make speech practice at home the most successful!
When we are learning any new skill, it is important to have consistent practice. Think about when you learned to play a musical instrument, a sport or even a second language. If you only practiced once a week, you would have very slow (if any) progress towards learning that skill. The same is true with learning the skill of using a speech sound for your child.
How long should we practice for?
Typically, I recommend speech practice happens every day for about 5-10 minutes. These short bits of consistent practice will help your child to really form the new habit we are wanting them to learn.
What does home speech practice look like?
This can really vary depending on your child. And the great thing is, that you know your child best. Does your child love to sit at the table and do crafts or colour? Do they need to be constantly moving around? Do they really like board games? Are they highly motivated at snack time?
If you have a child who loves crafts/colouring then you may want to use speech practice sheets that your child gets to colour or check off as they say their target words. You could also work on a craft together and have your child practice targets before adding the next step. Even better if you can incorporate your targets into the craft such as “stick” or “press”.
If you have a child who really likes movement then you may want to practice speech targets while playing soccer. Say your target 5 times and then shoot on the net. You may want to lay the speech cards out on the floor and have your child jump or crawl to each one as he says it.
If your child likes board games, try having them say their words before taking their turn in the game!
Have a kid who is highly motivated for snack time? Try dividing the snack into 10 pieces (crackers, raisins, grapes would work well for example). As the parent, you keep the pieces and your child has to say their target 5 times before getting the next piece of the snack. You will get 50 practices in during snack time!
These are just a few ideas of ways to practice with your child, depending on their interests. If none of these sound like they would work with your child, try thinking about what motivates or interests your child and use that during practice! If you are still stuck, ask your SLP for creative ways to use what motivates your child.
But seriously, I don’t even have 5-10 extra minutes in my day. What do I do?
I get it that many parents and families are super busy during the week and honestly have a hard time thinking of 5-10 minutes at home when they could practice speech. If this sounds like your family, then I would recommend aiming to do speech practice “on-the-go”.
Most families spend at least 5-10 minutes (or more) per day in the car going to school, daycare or other activities. Car rides can be a great time to sneak in some practice. Have your child practice saying their sound as many times as they can on the way to school. Or stick a list of target words in the car and have your child practice while you drive to gymnastics. Even short bits of practice throughout the week can make a big difference!
Need more tips? Looking for speech therapy in Calgary?
If these ideas sound great and you are looking to get started with speech therapy in Calgary, just fill out our contact form to get started with Rosy Speech and Language today!
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