Speech my 4 year old

[Loobylou1987]

Hi I had my parents evening lastnight my son is 5 end of January. He can’t sound k or g. He says t and d school have mentioned a speech therapist if he can’t get to grasp of it. Does anyone have any tips on helping him. He can say clock but it will say montey, toat, tarrot. Doat, Darden.

T and d are front sounds (front of the tongue goes up to the palate to make them) and k and g are back sounds. It's helpful to use this language. Also see of he can tell the difference e.g. point to a picture of tea/key. Some children can make the sound if they hold down the front of their tongue with the end of a spoon or metal straw to get a feel for the sound.

Hi thanks yes I’ve been looking at back sounds today and trying to teach him But he gags he has a sensitive gag reflex 🙈he knows what items are he just can’t pronounce the k sound or g sound he can if he holds his tongue down though as we have tried that xx

We had the same issue, he did end up seeing the speech therapist who gave him sheets full of words that had the sounds in the was struggling with. We read them with him each night for about 2 weeks max and his fine now, sometimes we have to remind him and get him to think about where he puts his tongue when speaking.

There's an app called Articulation which is used by speech therapists. You can pay for the specific sounds you want (like 'k') and it's really good. My DS 4 has a speech therapist and she told us to practice with this, and it has made a big difference.
Though that will only work if he doesn't have a physical difficulty.

A weird one, but sometimes it is easier to say k or g lying on your back, as it encourages the tongue back, so have a go lying on your bed! You can also Google 'lotto games k' for some games you can print out and play. It will let him hear the sounds lots.

@Rjw84

There's an app called Articulation which is used by speech therapists. You can pay for the specific sounds you want (like 'k') and it's really good. My DS 4 has a speech therapist and she told us to practice with this, and it has made a big difference. Though that will only work if he doesn't have a physical difficulty.

He hasn’t got a physical difficulty that we know if he’s above for everywhere else at school just his speech with those sounds x

It’s quite a common speech sound error in young children. There is a set way of working on sounds, starting with listening carefully to each sound and then practicing saying it by itself, then in short words, longer words and sentences.
The website mommyspeechtherapy is free and works through each step with printable resources.