Everyday Speech and Language Skills: Road Trips Part 2

We are back this month to talk about practicing sounds while in the car. This is a great time to get extra sound practice in while you are driving to friends and family for the holidays. This activity can be done during any trip, no matter how long you are in the car. Sound practice is one of the easiest skills to practice in the car. You will need to know what level your child is at (i.e. sounds in isolation, syllables, words, sentences or conversation), but then you can get in a ton of practice!

If your child is focusing on sounds in isolation, you will want to practice a single sound by saying it on its own as many times as will keep your child’s interest. Sometimes you might need to describe how to make the sound (i.e. “Let’s make the /P/ sound by putting our lips together and pushing out the air.”). Make sure you say the sound many times so your child can hear it.  You can make it fun by singing a song but replacing all the words with your child’s sound or doing something silly while you make the sound.

If your child is focusing on syllables, play with the sound by putting it in non-sense syllables.  You can say things like “buh, boh, boo, bah, bee” or “uhb, oob, ahb, eeb”.  Have your child imitate saying the sound in syllables with you. Much of the time animal sounds can be used for sound syllable practice (i.e. moo, bah and neigh)

If your child is working on words, play some word games that gets them practicing the sound and the beginning, middle and end of words. This could be “I Spy” or simply just thinking of all the words that you can with those sound. It is fun to go around the car and ask everyone. Coming up with words might be difficult, so be ready to have a list of words to help your child if he gets stuck. This is a great time that if mom or dad is in the passenger seat they can look up words on google!

If you child is working on sounds in sentences, have him work on creating a sentence for each word.  For example, you could say “let’s come up with a sentence for the word ‘cookie’.”  If your child has trouble, you can come up with sentences for him. Again, this might be a great time to use google to find words that your child can put into sentences with his sound. Make sure you choose words that your child knows, not ones that just start with the sound he is practicing. This will make it easier for him to make up sentence by themselves.

If your child is working on sounds in conversation, when you get in the car, tell your child that you are going to focus on his sound during the car ride.  Make sure he knows you will stop bugging him about it after the car ride is over.  Try any of the activities above but make sure you’re listening for the sound he’s working on.  If you hear him say one incorrectly, playfully catch the error by saying “Oh!  I hear our sound!  Listen, ‘cookie’!”  Say the word slowly and exaggerate the target sound.

I would also recommend reaching out to your school SLP and ask them if they have suggestions or things you can do at home to practice sounds. They should have great resources, as well as, word lists you can use to practice any of the above activities. Make sure you ask a few weeks before school is out for winter break to give them some time to put things together for you!

Practice these next road trip and let us know how it goes!

Lastly, I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season. I hope that you enjoy spending time with your loved ones and know we are excited to see you this next year!   – Jenn

These ideas as well as other were taken from: https://www.speechandlanguagekids.com/car-rides/