Trying to convince your kids to practice speech sounds at home may feel like pulling teeth sometimes, but it shouldn’t! Here are some ways to make practicing your child’s sound/s at home fun!

No Material Games

• Play “Going on a camping trip”, have the child start by saying “I am going on a camping trip and I’m taking…” and name something they would bring with them. Next, you will say “I am going on a camping trip and I’m taking..” and repeat the item your child said and then add your own item which should have their target sound in it. The game continues until someone forgets an item from the camping list. This is one way to work on sounds without your child knowing that they are practicing it.

• Play the game “Telephone”. Have your family gather around at the table or on the floor

and one person will come up with a “secret message” they will then whisper the message into their neighbors ear. The message goes all the way around the circle until it gets back to the original person. The original person will then tell the group what the message turned out to be after going around the circle. As a parent try to incorporate as many of your child’s speech sounds into your sentence as possible (think tongue twisters).

• Play “I Spy”. Pick an item to describe to your child without telling them what it is. Pick a target that has their sound in it so to guess correctly they have to say their sound.

Games with few materials

• Take a blank sheet of computer paper and write your child’s words all over the sheet. Buy Scratch off stickers $5.99 on Amazon for 100 stickers. And cover each word with a scratch off sticker. Your child gets to scratch off the sticker to find their target words. If your child is good at their sounds at the word level, have them use that word in a sentence.

• Buy a Jenga set and place a piece of tape on each Jenga piece and write one of your child’s target words on each piece. When your child pulls a Jenga piece have them say the word that is written on the piece.

• Search for “minimal pairs” for your child’s speech sounds.Minimal pairs are words that your child substitutes a speech sound for another sound. For example, if your child’s sound is /b/ and they produce /p/ in error, “bin” and “pin” would be minimal pairs. Print pictures with the words and pictures of the targets and place on top of dixie cups. Hide a small ball or coin under the target word. Ask your child to guess which cup the ball is under. If the child substitutes their sound for their error pick up the cup with the error word until they say their word correctly to pick up the target word.

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