If the Speech and Language Therapist has said that a child is able to use target sounds at a single word level and now needs to develop self-monitoring and generalisation skills, then the following activities would be useful.

Echo the child’s speech errors on the specific sound you know they can achieve, to prompt them to correct themselves e.g. Child: I got in the tar. Adult: The tar? Child: The car.

Collect pictures of things that start or end with the target sound. Put them in a scrap book and look through them, remind the child to name them carefully.

Ask the child to put one of the words from the scrap book into a sentence.

Choose several of the words in the scrap book and see if the child can make up a story using these words, remembering to make the sound correctly.

Point out words containing the target sound during reading activities, ask the child to say them correctly when reading a full sentence.

Allow the child to practise something to tell a small group, or the whole class. Prompt and remind them to use the target sound correctly.

Choose a few everyday words that start or end with the target sound (e.g. target: ‘sh,’ key words: ‘shoe, shop, she’). Tell the child that you will listen out for these words and prompt them if they do not use the target sound correctly.

Using sounds correctly in sentences, not just in single words