Is reading something you do with your child? Is it:
Regular/routine?
Occasional?
Something you want to start?
Well the good news is, that you can work on speech sounds while you are reading with your child. Here's how:
Pick a sound your child is having difficulty with.
Choose a book where words containing this sound appear a lot of times. In the pictures is easiest.
Say the words as many times as you can while reading the book. This gives your child lots of exposures to the sound being said correctly and helps to grow the representation of the sound in their brain.
You can point to and talk about the letter that says the sound you're working on, to let your child know that the letter says the sound, e.g. "Here's a letter P. It says the ppp sound."
You can give pauses for your child to fill in the word occasionally, e.g. "She needs to go ____."
If they don’t say the word, that’s OK, you can say it for them, e.g. "She needs to go... potty."
If they say it, but incorrectly, remodel it, e.g. child says "Botty," and you say, "Yeah, potty."
If they say it correctly, you can praise them, or repeat the word as a form of praise.
Make sure you keep the reading time enjoyable; snuggle up together, pick books you know your child will enjoy and encourage and respond to them if they make comments about the book or related experiences.
If they are losing interest, try to increase the interest or enjoyment level, for example by varying your voice pitch, asking them to act out something on the page to get some movement in, or spend less time on each page.
Try not to ask your child to name items lots of times. Aim to only ask them to say or name something a few times each book. This is because it can feel like they are being tested when you ask your child to name things or respond to your requests a lot of times.
You want your child to enjoy reading with you and want to keep doing it, so that you can keep using this strategy and exposing them to lots of books, while continuing to support their speech and literacy acquisition.
What do you think?
Does this seem do-able?
Do you think you will use this strategy?
If you would like this information in a one-page handout, to help you remember what to do, it is included as part of my Handout Bundle for Speech Sounds, which currently includes 12 handouts.
If you’d like to see this in action, I have a demonstration video and an instructional video in my Speech Sound Essentials Course, which includes lots more strategies like this one.
You can get the Speech Sound Essentials Course included as part of my Speech Teacher Membership, if you sign up for a year.