Speech Therapy Home Activities

Many parents ask me to suggest things they can do at home to help their children with their speech and language skills.  There are tons of great things you can do at home! Here are just a few things you can do:

• Read, Read, and Read! Don't just read bedtime stories at night....Go to the library and pick out a favorite book together.  Be sure the book is age appropriate.  Label actions that are happening in the pictures, label the vocabulary, have your child repeat the words and sentences after you and have them answer yes/no questions and simple -wh questions (who, what, where,etc).  After you are finished reading the book, ask them to retell the story to you.
• Talk to your child.  Most young children learn best through imitation so be sure you are speaking to them with good pronunciations and sentence structure.  Talk about activities and what you are doing throughout the day.  There are many opportunities for this throughout each day.  Examples include bathtime, snack time, dinner time, playing outside etc.
• Use play time to engage with your young child for increasing speech and language skills.  This makes it fun for your child.  Use toys in a fun and engaging way.  Cause and effect toys are great for requesting and making choices. Bubbles are also something most young children enjoy.  See if they can round their lips to blow their own bubbles.  Practice their /p/,/b/ and /m/ sounds for "pop" "more" "bubble".

These are just a few examples of some quick activites that you can do at home.  Let us know what your child enjoys!! Have a wonderful week.