Spring Speech Practice

An Outdoor S-Blend Scavenger Hunt

Spring is a wonderful time to take speech practice outside. A simple walk through the yard, park, or neighbourhood can become a fun opportunity to notice sounds, build vocabulary, and practice speech in a natural way.

One group of sounds that is commonly practiced in speech therapy is s-blends. S-blends are words that begin with /s/ plus another consonant, such as:

snail, stick, stone, spring, sky, slide, smile, small, spot, stem, sprout, swing

For some children, it can be tricky to keep both sounds at the beginning of the word. For example, a child might say “nail” instead of “snail” or “tick” instead of “stick.”

Try a Spring S-Blend Scavenger Hunt

Head outside with your child and see how many s-blend words you can find, say, or talk about together.

Look for:

• snail

• stick

• stone

• stem

• sprout

• sky

• swing

• slide

• spot

• something small

• something smooth

• something that has a smell

As your child finds each item, model the word clearly:

“You found a stick!”
“Sssstick. Stick.”
“That is a small stone.”
“Look, a snail!”

When to Contact an SLP

Speech sound development varies from child to child, and not every child will be ready to practice every sound pattern at the same time.

If you have concerns about your child’s speech clarity, or if your child is leaving sounds out of words such as snail, stick, sky, slide, or swing, you can contact a Speech-Language Pathologist.