Developing Speech and Language Skills - Noel's ESL eBook Library

Phoneme FactoryReading intelligiblyIt can appear that children are more intelligible when they are reading, but this may bebecause the listener has a complete translation before his or her eyes! For somechildren having a written clue to the sounds in words really is helpful and they can usethis to help them produce new sounds or add sounds that they usually miss out.Reading aloud is slower than the rate of conversational speech, which is helpful for thework of exploring and using new speech patterns. When the child is expected to focuson improving speech clarity the reading task should be well within their capability withfamiliar vocabulary, picture cues and use of repetitive phrases or sentences. Forexample, a cloze sentence like ‘I can see a ...’ with a picture clue demands a low levelof reading skill, but the written words can still act as clues for particular speech sounds.Helping the child with spellingSome children with speech impairments are delayed in development of literacy skillsand will need extra support. Others may be keeping up with their peers, but theirpronunciations of words they are trying to spell interferes with their success atsegmenting written words.Some children ‘know’ what the letter–sound correspondence is ‘in their heads’, but aredistracted by their own pronunciation when they say a sound or word.Encouraging the child to point to a symbol of the required letter as they segment theword can help. This means they are ‘silently’ segmenting and avoids the distraction oftheir own pronunciation patterns.Augmentative and alternative communication systems (AAC)Children with more severe speech impairments can benefit from the use of structuredalternative communication systems. These include manual signing systems such asMakaton or Signalong (see ‘References, bibliography and further reading’ for webaddresses), or the use of picture symbol systems or voice output communication aids(VOCA). The advice of an SLT is needed if AAC is considered necessary.In Part 2 are specific activities designed to help children to develop listening anddiscrimination skills. These are to help the child to listen and discriminate sounds inwords, but do not directly address speech production skills.64