My sons speech

[Ironwoman123]

5 year old boy in primary 1 (reception). His teacher raised concerns and I went to GP who referred to speech therapy. Initial session went fairly well and she advised 6 sessions then a revisit in 12 weeks to reasses.

Had parents night tonight and the main point was focusing on his speech. It made me quite sad as I'm not sure how to help him except to take him to his speech therapy.

The sessions start next week.

How likely is it that 6 sessions will help/correct it.

He struggles with sounds. So e.g.
Ok = otay, remember = demember, rocket - rawtet

I've started correcting him every time he mispronounces a word but he gets really self conscious and annoyed and I hate doing it. I'm scared he's going to stop talking altogether. Sometimes hell just say "I can't " and refuse to cooperate.

The teacher said she was worried his peers may pick up on it.

Should I keep correcting him and drawing attention to it? Even if he's clearly upset that he can't pronounce it? Or will it correct in time naturally/with speech therapy?

Oh and when I do make a point to correct him, it seems that I'm stopping him every sentence or two to correct him and its just embarrassing for him it seems. If he's telling a story and it seems like I'm not listening, just correcting him and we end up losing track of what we were talking about as we've been side tracked by the correct pronunciation.

Is this the right way to go about it.

I would ask the speech therapist what they advise you to do and whether they have any exercises or practice that you can do with him at home.

please don't worry and don't feel you need to correct him all the time. Trust your instincts that it is making him uncomfortable.
Replacing a 'k' sound with a 't' sound is called 'fronting' (making the sound further forward in the mouth) and it is very common. It is likely it will resolve with the speech therapy.

Yes six sessions can make a difference. The big thing is they give you lots of strategies to work on. They will then assess and you may get a refferal for another appointment and a follow up session.

I went with DS1 and most recently with DD. Both very convercent but litteral and struggling with social communication.

One thing i'd picked up on, but someone more knowledgeable may give better advice, was rather than challenging to just repeat so if DS said 'december when we went to the park', you'd say 'I remember that. I remember playing on the swings. I remember sliding on the slide. I remember we had fun. What do you remember?' So its repetition, repetition, repetition.

Two things jumped out of your post...

Firstly, I wouldn't correct him as such when he mispronounces a word rather repeat back to him correctly e.g. "I drew a rawtet mummy" "wow that's a great rocket". Sorry if I am teaching you to suck eggs and you already do this.

Secondly, I think this issue should be dealt with separately from parents evening. You should also be learning about your child's general attainment/behaviour/well being.

My daughter has speech sound issues and has had shed loads of therapy. We have always been advised not to correct or ask him to correct, but to repeat back correctly. E.g.

Him: Demember the rawtet?
You: Remember which Rocket?

We have also been advised to play games where you model the correct sounds he has difficulties with lots - e.g rrrrrrrr in car games, just to model the correct sounds without asking him to join in (though if he does, fine). But I wouldn't try to push him into sound production until you are working with a speech therapist. Great he is being seen so quickly.

I've had much worse start off with going through the sounds of the alphabet. Buy a big poster of the alphabet with pictures beside each letter. Start teaching him how to read. Buy those children's level books 1 - 5 hopefully if you spend 10-20 minutes a day with him you should see some improvements. The main thing is he's talking just work on the phonics with him.

Thanks everyone. That's reassuring.
I think I'll continue to correct him discreetly without drawing too much attention to it.

The teacher said she was mostly concerned as it can start to affect their spelling. So if she says spell 'scarf' he may start writing 'starf' as that's how he pronounces it.

Feel bad now as following parents night I just felt I had to do more and so I've been on a "correction spree" and anytime I correct him, he says "I'm trying really hard mum" .

Other than that the teacher did say he was doing well and was where they would hope in terms of reading and numbers. He's sociable and well liked, very polite and helpful. So I'm really pleased about that.

Don't correct, that will make him self conscious, as you're finding. Instead, try modelling - so if he says 'it's a super rawtet' then you reply 'yes, isn't the rocket great!' But with normal emphasis.

Speak to the speech therapist for ideas of games and practises to do at home. You could try using pictures of words with the relevant sounds in and play games like 'memory' and 'snap' but whenever you turn the cards over say the words in the pictures. Keep modelling but not correcting.

The processes you've described are usually just immature speech and will sort themselves eventually. The speech therapist will be able to give you a good plan to follow.

Both my boys have been through speech therapy and a lot of things that helped were games with lots of repetition so rather than correcting him do little games with him practicing speech for example if he struggles with the word rocket you could play a five minute game about a rocket etc activities such a blowing things with a straw can help it's meant to help with moving the mouth for speech little fun games through out the day involving words he struggles with will help build his confidence

In 6 sessions it is likely he will cover only 2-4 actual sounds. As someone above said it will also give you strategies you can use at home.
They usually start with the most used sounds with which he needs help eg c, s. Blended sounds are done after and some sounds eg L wont be done, if required, until his adult teeth come down.
When working a sound, they start by showing him the shape etc. Then adding a vowel, then it becomes a small word ie: S, they will show where the tongue goes (snake behind the teeth), then s-ah, s-oo, s-oh sounds etc , then small words.
You will have homework to do and it is very important you do this, this is usually sound games.
There will be 3-6 months between groups of sessions for you to work on perfecting the sounds before moving on.
Hths