Early speech sounds, then what???
Ok, so your child is beginning to produce some of those early speech sounds. What do you do next to help their speech production/development?...SOUND IMITATION.
Why sound imitation and not word imitation?
Toddlers actually tend to imitate sound production more easily than they do whole words. Pair verbal sounds with movement and motion! For example, when you are pushing a train, say “choo, choo”.
When you begin to make a variety of sounds for your child, you are setting them up to be able to eventually combine these vowel and consonant sound combinations to form syllables and words. Sounds during play are the stepping stones to imitating words and phrases!
Here are some sound imitation activities taken from Super Duper Publications: Early Language Development by Linda Mawhinney and Mary Scott McTeague:
Transportation
Train - “choo, choo” while pushing the train down a trake
Car - “beep, beep” while driving a car
Fire Truck - “whoo-woo” while driving the truck
Boat - “puh-puh-puh” while sailing the boat in a wave motion
Truck - “honk-honk” while honking a pretend horn
Food and Kitchen Play:
Popcorn - “pop-pop-pop” while popping fingers/hands
Hot Chocolate - “hot” while blowing on the cup
Happy Face - “mmm-mmm” while licking lips
Yucky Face - “yuck or blah” while sticking tongue out and wrinkling nose
Household Objects/Toys:
Clock - “tick-tock” while rocking head back and forth
Phone - “ring-ring” while holding the phone up to your ear
Vacuum - “brrrrrrrmmmm” while pretending to push vacuum/toy vacuum
Dolls/Action Figures/Animals
Sneezing - “achoo” while placing hand over nose and mouth
Hiding - “peekaboo” while covering face
Baby - “waaah” while tapping the baby
Animals noises - “moo-moo”, “woof-woof”, “quack-quack”
Keep your eye out for my next blog about your child’s first words!!
