How to teach a child to pronounce the sound "L" at home

Preschool age is the period of the most active development of the child. Significant physiological changes take place in his body, the development of thought processes, psyche, emotional-volitional sphere and personality as a whole is underway.

Research has shown that all mental processes in a child develop with the direct participation of speech. And, obviously, the violation of this human function leads to difficulties in the harmonious development of the baby. In order to timely help a child to master speech, parents should know the patterns of speech development of a preschool child.

Age-related deviations of speech development

Normally, by the age of three, the baby should be proficient in almost all the sounds of the tongue, with the exception of hissing (Ш, Щ, Ч, Ж) and the sound P, Pb. This age is characterized by an increase in speech activity, children begin to use speech in order to learn new facts for themselves. In other words, this is the age of "why".

Here are the common mistakes children make at this stage of speech development:

replacing the sound R with L, L (hand - hatch),
replacement of sibilant Ш, Ш, Ч, Ж with soft Сь, Зь (scarf - sarf),
replacement of L with the sounds of L, Y (bow - hatch, lamp - yampa).

A five-year-old should already correctly pronounce all the sounds of speech and use not only simple, but also complex sentences to express his thoughts.

If a child pronounces sounds incorrectly for a long time, then motor articulation skills are consolidated, and the perception of speech sounds is distorted. The kid pronounces the sound incorrectly, but does not understand it himself. If you do not help the child in time, then he will have a persistent speech defect, which will be much more difficult to overcome.

Formation of the correct pronunciation of sounds in a child

Often, if the child does not have chronic diseases, pathologies of the development of the organs of the speech apparatus (tongue, soft and hard palate, lips), disturbances in the functioning of the nervous system, adults at home can help the baby to master this or that sound. In this case, you only need to know the order of actions necessary to produce the missing or distorted sound.

First, the main thing for parents to start with is strengthening articulatory motor skills. This is achieved through a variety of exercises, of which the literature provides many.
Secondly, it is the very staging or clarification of the sound. Each sound has its own technique.
The next step will be to consolidate the sound, first in syllables, then in words.
After the child successfully pronounces a sound in words, he is offered tasks for differentiating (distinguishing) opposition sounds (Zh-Sh, Ch-Sh, Z-S, T-D, etc.)
Next comes the stage of memorizing nursery rhymes, tongue twisters, riddles, poems with a set sound.
And finally, we fix the sound in speech: storytelling, storytelling.

How to teach a child to pronounce a solid "L" sound at home

In this article, we want to dwell in more detail on the setting of the solid sound "L".

Most often, when pronouncing the sound "L", the following shortcomings are encountered: there is no sound at all, it is replaced by others - L, V, U, I. (shop - "lyavka", "uyavka"). Due to the fact that the pronunciation of this sound requires the upper position of the tongue, you need to find out if the child can lift it up.

In order for the tongue to clearly hold the desired position, we offer the following exercises designed to strengthen the muscles of the tongue:

"Sting" - show a narrow tongue
"Sting" - "Spatula" - show either a narrow or a wide tongue.
"Swing" - the tongue alternately touches the lower and upper lip.
"Pendulum" - the end of the tongue turns into the corners of the lips.
"Let's punish the naughty tongue" - stick out your tongue, slap your lips on it (five-five-five) so that it becomes wide.
"The tongue is sleeping" - lightly bite the end of the protruding tongue, opening and closing the mouth, lips and tongue are relaxed and motionless.

After you notice that the child can easily cope with the proposed exercises, you can proceed directly to setting the sound "L".

The first way to call L: the spread tongue lies motionless between the teeth ("The tongue is asleep"), my mother suggests singing AAA and, without interruption, bite the tip of her tongue, continuing to sing the same sound - it turned out ALL. I would like to warn you that you do not need to ask the child at this stage what sound he made. This can be done only after repeated repetition of the exercise, when he succeeds.

The second way of setting: sing YYYYY, while biting a wide tongue. The child is shown this exercise in silence so that the sound L is not audible, otherwise he will pronounce it with the usual distortion.

The sound obtained with these techniques is fixed first in closed syllables (AL, IL, OL, UL); further - between vowels (ALA, ILA, ULO ...), then in open syllables (LA-LA, LO-LO, LU-LU, LA-LU, LO-LU, etc.).

Further, as we said earlier, the sound is fixed in words:

where the sound L stands at the end of the word: rear, donkey, chair, roll, glass, etc.
where the sound Л stands at the beginning of the word: skis, bast, boat, puddle, horse, etc.
where the sound L stands in the middle of a word: fang, class, glory, eyes, flea, etc.

Next, you begin to memorize with the child simple verses, nursery rhymes, riddles, in which the sound L is often found. This will automate the resulting sound and introduce it into speech.

Examples:

On the smooth surface of the window glass

heavy drop of glass.

A drop fell on a blue flower

and opened one petal.

Run away, run away

milk escaped.

I barely caught him,

Being a hostess is not easy!

Everything is white, white, white.

It covered a lot of snow.

Here are the fun days!

Everyone on skis and skates!

If you are not sure of your abilities or are afraid of harming the baby in some way, then there is always a way to contact specialized centers, of which there are now a lot. After attending several speech therapy classes and mastering the skill of pronouncing a "difficult" sound, your child will be able to continue working on the development of speech with his parents.

We suggest with the child to do the exercises shown in the following video speech therapist Natalia Gorina.

How to prevent speech flaws

Parents should remember that their behavior can also affect the development of the baby's speech. How should parents behave if they want their child's speech to be formed without unnecessary difficulties?

First of all, you need to talk to your baby slowly, calmly. This is due to the fact that due to insufficiently developed auditory perception, the child will not have time to hear and recognize the speech of an adult.
It is necessary to prompt the child how to correctly pronounce the word that he finds it difficult to say. Usually kids are happy to repeat after adults. Just do not forget that being too exacting can offend the child, and he can completely withdraw.
It is not advisable to overload the child with early study of letters and reading, especially if this is done without his desire, since the expected result may be the opposite.
It is a mistake to force a young child to recite poetry in front of guests. This is a great stress for a baby whose speech has not yet fully formed. Subsequently, such mistakes of adults can lead to stuttering.
With late development of speech, you should not panic, you just need to pay more attention to speech games with the child in order to replenish his passive vocabulary.
In addition, the prevention of deficiencies in speech development is facilitated by the normal functioning of other speech organs (auditory, vocal, respiratory apparatus, vision, smell, touch), the well-coordinated work of which contributes to the formation of correct speech.

Remember, speech development work doesn't end quickly. This is a lengthy process. It is necessary to constantly expand the vocabulary of the baby, read books to him, compose stories from pictures, according to the impressions that he has. In every possible way to encourage the child to communicate, gently and unobtrusively correct his mistakes, while giving him a sample of correct speech.