Learning About Speech Sound Structures

Are you interested in helping your child to improve their articulation (speech sound) skills? Here are some ways you can help your child learn their speech sound structures to help prepare them for producing accurate speech sounds!

Learning about the structures used to produce speech sounds is a helpful start! Sit with your child and point out the following: lips, tongue (tip, sides, back), teeth, hard palate, and jaw. You can use a straw, toothbrush, lollipop, or a spoon to help reach the parts of the mouth. Can they show you these body parts on themselves? Awareness of our oral structures used for speech production is helpful for awareness and articulatory placement!

Make it fun! Make a tongue out of play-doh and have your child point out the tongue tip, sides, and back. You can also print out a mouth coloring sheet and talk about the oral structures as you color.

Make silly faces together in the mirror and see if they can copy you! Move your tongue side to side, pucker your lips, and stick your tongue out. Explain what to do to help your child match your face or follow those silly directions!

• Example: “My tongue is out between my teeth and I can’t see yours! Your teeth are closed. Open your mouth/drop your jaw and put your tongue in between your top and bottom teeth, like you are biting your tongue. Awesome! You did it!”

Manipulating these oral structures used for speech and following instructions is an important step to learning how to produce all our speech sounds correctly.

Keep it playful, fun, and silly! If you notice signs of frustration, take a break.