Speech and Language Made Easy This Summer: Tips for Families
Summer is in full swing! What if I told you that you can work on speech and language skills through popular summer activities, often at little to no cost? Let's get into some fun ideas!
Chalk
Chalk is an excellent tool for targeting speech skills while maintaining children's engagement. It facilitates both independent and group work, whether you are working with your child or they are playing with peers.
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Say your word and draw a picture of it.
Write your speech word and then identify the letter that corresponds with your sound.
Write silly sentences with your target words.
Hopscotch! Draw a hopscotch board (1–10), roll a rock, and say your target word the number of times you land on.
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Write letters all over the ground. Call out a sound (like /t/), and have your child find and circle the matching letter.
Let them write their target words, then pick out the letter that makes their sound.
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Use my favorite, “mystery drawing” activity to work on: inferencing, descriptive language, and sentence building.
How to play:
You (or your child) draw something while the other person guesses what it is based on clues.
Encourage using descriptive language to give or interpret clues:
“It’s something cold and sweet.”
“It’s frozen, has different flavors, and comes on a cone.”
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Let your child take the lead! This encourages natural communication and removes pressure. Give them an opportunity to request colors, shapes, or what to draw.
Verbs: draw, make, like
Adjectives: size and color concepts
Nouns: draw a variety of different nouns as you go
Some ideas:
Drawing animals? Practice combining words (i.e., “draw + ears”)
Drawing a water scene? Try “in + water” or “put + here”
Core words to model: make, like, play, do, have, here
Bubbles
Bubbles offer a variety of language rich opportunities whether your child is a verbal communicator, AAC user, or multimodal communicator.
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Working on /p, b, m, r, ch/? Try words like pop, bubbles, more, big, run, chase for lots of practice.
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Make playing with bubbles a chance to build richer sentences using prepositions and descriptive words:
“The bubbles are under the chair.”
“Pop the big bubble with your finger!”
Add in following directions for receptive language practice: “Stomp your feet, then blow the bubbles!”
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Practice turn-taking and joint attention! Both key building blocks for language growth!
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Model verbs (blow, spill, catch, clean, open, close) and adjectives (big/little, sticky, wet/dry). Try expanding utterances:
I + want + more
Blow +bubbles
Little + bubble
Open + up
Water Play
Fun Tip: Take water play to the next level by turning it into ice play! Freeze small items like mini animals or tiny toys inside ice cubes. This acts as an experiment when trying to find ways to melt the ice. It’s hands-on, sensory-rich, and encourages the use of problem solving skills and team work.
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Water play is a fun and effective way to target speech sounds naturally. As your child explores and searches for objects in the water, there are many strategies available to target their sounds. If your child is working on speech at the phrase or sentence level, encourage them to say or write a word or sentence each time they find an item.
Here are some example speech sounds and themed vocabulary you can naturally incorporate during water play:
S: soak, ice, sink
R: water, rise
D: dunk, dry, dump
F: fill, fun, full
T: hot, wet, take, water
M: more, mess, mine
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Following single and multi step directions
Put the shark in the water
First put fish in, then put whale in
After you put dolphin in, put turtle in
WH and Yes/No questions
“WH”- “What animals live in the water?”, “Who is green and has a hard shell?”, “Where do fish live?”
Yes/No: “Does a fish live in the water?”, “Does a cow live in the water?”
Verbs
Splash, jump, swim, fill, dump
Verb tense and pronouns: “She is splashing.”, “He jumped in the water.”
Basic concepts:
Wet/dry, in/out, hot/cold, full/empty
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See the “Language” section for ideas! Model various language concepts both verbally and on your child’s device.
I Spy
I Spy is a language-rich game that supports articulation, expressive, and receptive language in a natural way.
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Using I Spy is an easy, no prep way to get practice trials in. It is especially helpful if your child is working on their sounds at the word or phrase level.
Have your child make a list of items that has their sound, give them help as needed! For example, /s/ (sun, soap, sink, ice, juice). This is also a great way to work on phonemic awareness. Then, starting looking for the items!
Phrase ideas for different target sounds:
S- “I spy something that…”
F- “Find something that…”
L- “Look for something that…”
M- “I spy with my little eye…”
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Receptive Language:
Listening for details: Players must pay attention to clues and process descriptive language.
Following directions: "Find something that is square and hard.”
Inference skills: Using context clues to figure out the object.
Prepositions: “It’s under the table,” “next to the door.”
Expressive Language:
Descriptive vocabulary: Players must use adjectives (color, size, shape) to describe the object.
Complete sentences: Encourages sentence structure ("I spy with my little eye something that is…").
Categorization: Helps with word retrieval and categorization ("It's a kind of food").
Turn-taking and questioning: Teaches conversational skills and how to form questions.
Game Night
Game nights are an awesome way to hang out as a family and build social skills at the same time! Here are some of my favorite summer themed games.
Follow on Instagram and Facebook for more ideas on how you can support your child at home!
This blog post contains affiliate links to the resources that I use in my own therapy room.
