• If your child pronounces a word or sound incorrectly, it’s best to repeat the word slowly with the correct pronunciation, emphasizing the correct sound with a louder voice than normal. For instance, if your child says “THally fell”, say “Yes, SSSSally fell down”. Yes, is an important part because it means, “Yes, I heard what you said and I am affirming and repeating it for you”. This does not hurt your child’s feelings. If your child is capable of making the error sound correctly, break the word for them and say, “Let’s see if we can say SSSS--ally; that’s a good try!” IF their first attempts are SSS-thally, don’t worry about it; with practice, they will drop the th sound completely. Remember, you can picture the spelling of the word in your head and know what sound is supposed to go there, but your young child may not be able to think in written words yet.

RATE OR SPEED OF SPEECH

• Your child’s rate of speech can often be as big a problem to understanding them as their actual sound production. If your child is speaking quickly, they will run their words together, sometimes even leave off the ends of words and shorten cluster sounds (chr, skw) in their hurry to get their message across. "My bike has a flat tire" can sound like, "My bi ha a fa tire."

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