Activities to develop early speech skills

Speech Sounds - Activities to develop early speech skills - Introduction
Speech sounds develop gradually throughout early childhood and children’s listening skills provide the foundation for their speech sound system.
 
For a child to develop clear speech, they need to be able to hear the sounds accurately first. So, when supporting a child with their speech sounds, the best place to start is with their listening skills.
 
If your child has difficulties with attention and listening, understanding or use of spoken language, it is often helpful to support these areas first. Take a look at our advice to support these areas here.

Listening activities

Listening activities
These activities support children to develop their listening skills, and tune into the sounds around them in their environment.
 
Listening Walks
Talk about the sounds that you can hear – the noisy cars, the crunchy leaves or rustling trees blowing in the wind. Encourage your child to listen to the different sounds you can hear.
 
Sound Hunts
Hide a noisy toy in the room and encourage your child to listen and find where the sound is coming from.
 
Musical Instruments
Play with musical instruments or homemade shakers and talk about the sounds, make different rhythms, shake the instruments “high” and “low”, “fast” and “slow”, “loud” and “quiet”. See if you can copy each other’s beats and rhythms.

Sound play activities

You can support your child to play and experiment with speech sounds during playtime and daily routines. Encourage them to look at your mouth as you make the sounds and see if they want to copy. Give your child lots of praise for any attempt they make with sound play. It is important for this to feel fun, without any pressure.
 
Babble
If your child is babbling and experimenting with speech sounds, copy their babble back to them and add a new sound. For example, if your child says “da dee da”, you can say “da dee da ba”.
 
Play with sounds throughout the day
Make sounds like “mmm” as you eat meals, “brum brum” when you’re driving toy cars and “choo choo” when playing with trains. Make animal noises and talk about the noisy cow “moo” and the quiet mouse “eeek”.
 
Model speech sounds during play
Children benefit from hearing and seeing speech sounds lots of times. If there is a sound your child finds difficult or is not making yet, repeat the sound to them during an activity. For example, you could make the sound /p/ every time you put a brick on a tower, thread a bead on a piece of string, roll a ball to each other, or when you pop a bubble!
 
Sound Box
If you have noticed your child is not using a certain sound or finds a particular sound tricky, play a game of ‘what’s in the box?’ that will expose your child to hearing that sound lots and lots of times. Gather a few items that start with the sound and take turns to choose one from the box. Name the object for your child and hold it near your mouth, so they can see your mouth moving as you say the sounds.

Resources and links

Take a look at our Early Speech Sound Advice handout for more information about how to support your child’s listening and speech sound skills. Or watch this video:
 
 
We also recommend these activity ideas from BBC Tiny Happy People:
 

Last updated02 Aug 2024
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