Correction of sound pronunciation in children 5–7 years old
Irina Kuzyanova
Correction of sound pronunciation in children 5–7 years old
Beautiful, correct, competent speech is one of the foundations of a person’s success in society. A child needs correct pronunciation for confident communication, successful learning, competent reading and writing, and harmonious development. Sounds are the main building material of human speech, and only with their clear, accurate transmission can speech be understood correctly, and therefore serve as a means of communication.
Impaired sound pronunciation is not only a cosmetic defect, but also a serious obstacle to a child’s mastery of written language. It negatively affects the child’s emotional state, his self-esteem, the formation of personality traits, and communication with peers.
The question of the purity of children's speech will arise even more seriously when the child enters school. From the first day of school, a child has to use speech extensively: answer in the presence of the whole class, ask questions, read aloud, and speech deficiencies are immediately detected. At school, speech deficiencies can cause student failure. The inconveniences that the child experienced in the family, in kindergarten, are even more pronounced and aggravated in the school community.
Throughout preschool age, the child acquires the vocabulary necessary for communication, masters grammatical forms, and becomes ready to master the sound and morphological analysis of words.
In many children, the lack of correct sound pronunciation is accompanied by deviations in phonemic development, which often goes unnoticed. It should be noted that such pronunciation deficiencies as substitutions, mixtures, and rearrangements of sounds are already an indicator of insufficient discrimination of sounds , which often accompanies general speech underdevelopment. If a child confuses sounds in pronunciation , he may confuse them in writing. That is why great attention when working with preschoolers should be paid to the development of phonemic processes. The ability to distinguish between phonemes is the basis for successful literacy acquisition. If a preschooler at one time was not able to master the skills of phonemic perception, analysis-synthesis and representations, then at school he will face great difficulties, since the time allocated by the school curriculum for mastering this material is designed for children with normal speech development.
Raising clear speech in preschool children
Speech therapists and teachers of speech therapy groups pay great attention to correcting the pronunciation of sounds and the development of phonemic functions in preschoolers.
Initially, we teach children to listen to non-speech sounds , arouse attention and interest in them, and show that non-speech sounds can inform or warn about something. At the same time, children develop auditory attention and auditory memory (without which it is impossible to successfully teach children to differentiate phonemes).
Next, we develop the ability to listen to the sounds of the human voice, distinguish the voices of familiar people, and develop auditory attention. All this work is closely related to the correction of incorrect pronunciation of sounds in a child .
Often, deficiencies in sound pronunciation in children, for one reason or another, are very persistent. Sometimes months of persistent, painstaking practice pass before the child independently correctly articulates a new sound . Therefore, not only a competent, but also a creative approach to the process of sound . How to make sounds automation classes interesting , varied and at the same time productive for a child? After all, you want to captivate your student, surprise, evoke positive emotions, and not just dryly pronounce the material.
In preschool age, play copes well with this - one of the forms of practical thinking, an activity that is cognitive in nature. In it, children willingly, easily and quickly, often unnoticed by themselves, learn the correct pronunciation of sounds .
The game is based on a system-activity approach, because the natural mental need inherent in the child by nature itself continues to be the desire for independent study and mastery of the world around him, devoid of external pressure.
The psychological and physiological characteristics of students are taken into account. The child can use one of the analyzers to a greater extent (auditory, visual, tactile, kinesthetic)
and better perceive information. In the game, the child connects several analyzers, which ensures maximum impact.
In play, it is easier for a child to open up, he becomes more emotional and sociable. Therefore, games occupy a large place in the lesson on sound , which requires a lot of repetition, which tires and bores children . To avoid this, games should be varied. When selecting them, it is necessary to take into account the individual characteristics of children , their age, elements of entertainment, interest in its content and clarity of purpose.
For example: sound automation games [p] .
At the word level (word formation and inflection)
Game: “Which, which, which?”
Purpose of the game: the formation of relative adjectives formed from nouns.
Examples: vegetable garden - vegetable garden (scarecrow, parade - ceremonial (uniform, city - urban (transport, magazine - coffee table (table, carpenter - carpentry)
(workshop, cargo - cargo (transport, hand-hand (parrot)
.
Game “Name it kindly”
Purpose of the game: to learn to form words with diminutive and affectionate suffixes according to the model.
Sample: wind-breeze.
Examples: wind, evening, boat, sugar, cheese, wire, cord, worm, attic, pie, cottage cheese, circle, friend, horn.
Sample: mountain-slide.
Examples: hole, mountain, hole, notebook, chest, eyebrow, pipe, path, grass, string, sheet, spring, pyramid.
Sample: ship-ship
Examples: ball, borscht, ship, mattress, ruff, brother, steamer, crucian carp, story, pencil, crab, square, mole, rod, axe, yard, watermelon, cake, brick.
Sample: pocket pocket
Words for examples: samovar, motor, tomato, fence, fly agaric, marshmallow, uniform, tram, briefcase, drum, sundress, barn.
Even timid children enjoy participating in the educational game. They build dialogues, compose small stories, select words-actions, words-signs, etc. To learn how to speak sounds you need to be friends with your tongue, then it will be obedient and will clearly pronounce all sounds . children's articulatory apparatus for the correct pronunciation of sounds, fairy tales and games about the “Jolly Tongue” are very suitable. 5- and 7-year-old children like to do useful, necessary exercises while traveling with the Tongue. For this I use “Tales of the Merry Tongue”, I have assistants Slysh and Sound .
However, when using standard methods when automating sounds, you have to wait much longer for the result than if you use elements of non-traditional methods in the lesson. After all, simply repeating verbal material after a speech therapist is not interesting for a child; he quickly gets tired, begins to get distracted, and, of course, the quality of work decreases. The modern educational process requires the latest forms, methods and technologies of education, development and training. There is a shift in emphasis from the activity of an adult to the activity of the child himself, who is at the center of the educational process. The use of innovative pedagogical technologies opens up new possibilities for correcting sound pronunciation . The main methods of work are: motor-kinesthetic and auditory-visual-kinesthetic.
The use of symbols, colored visual material in the form of locks of consonant and vowel sounds , sounds - blue , green, red, bell (ringing sound )
when getting acquainted with the characteristics of
sound , dolls-sounds , at the automation stage gives a positive result. Children examine and remember the position of the lips, tongue, teeth when pronouncing a sound , and compare their performance with the sound "Tongue"
manual ).
The diagram gives a sufficient idea of the sound and allows the child to control the execution of the exercises, helps to visually remember and kinesthetically feel the accuracy of the execution. The child here is an active participant in the learning process.
A necessary condition for producing sounds is articulatory gymnastics. To avoid child fatigue and loss of interest when repeated many times, I use speech therapy stories where the characters are either children or favorite children's characters.
It has been scientifically proven that finger movements are closely related to speech function. With rhythmic movements of the fingers, the coordinated activity of the frontal and temporal parts of the brain sharply increases. In my work I successfully use a simulator made from a Kuznetsov applicator or Lyapko applicators from Argo. Since the movements of the fingers stimulate the maturation of the central nervous system, it is useful when pronouncing vowel sounds in syllables and words to consistently press the fingers against the applicator.
To automate sounds , I use visual supports - symbols for vowel sounds , which not only tell you which vowel sound to pronounce , but also remind you that your lips should be actively working. This ensures clarity of articulation.
Often in isolation, children pronounce all sounds correctly , but in the speech stream the sounds lose their differentiated characteristics and are pronounced distorted. For each child, taking into account impaired sounds , I use E. F. Arkhipova’s modules. During the consolidation period, great importance is attached to the repeated repetition of words that include a given sound . tactile-kinesthetic stimulation at the stage of sound of sounds .
Sand therapy, used in individual speech therapy work, also belongs to innovative technologies. Children are happy to touch the sand, find certain objects in it, using brushes, tubes (to develop an air stream, dig out objects with their fingers. This is especially important for children who are hyperactive and get tired easily.
Playing with water unloads the child’s emotional sphere. They create an emotional and joyful mood.
The use of testoplasty helps in the development of fine differentiated movements, coordination, and tactile sensations that children need in work. In this case, productive activity acts as a specific imaginative means of understanding reality, and therefore is of great importance for the mental, and, consequently, speech development of children .
An excellent stimulus for children and a means of creating speech situations is the finger theater, which is in the arsenal of the speech therapy room. Its use allows the child to transform into a fairy-tale character from a given plot. And the use of a fairy tale plot also ensures the child’s interest, concentration of attention and unobtrusive implementation of the assigned correctional tasks by the speech therapist .
When automating sounds in syllables , when it is not yet possible to use subject and plot pictures with a given sound the “Magic Cube” to attract the interest of children
(with a different number of spots on the ribs,
“Royal”
, where the child imitates playing the piano and at the same time repeats the syllables: ro-ro-ru-ry, etc.
a huge role in correctional work. The speech therapy room has a sufficient number of manuals, games for automation, differentiation of sounds , for the formation of phonemic processes, lexical and grammatical categories, the development of coherent speech, the development of correct air flow, and fine motor skills. Author's teaching aids and simulators “Funny Tongue”
,
“Aeroball”
,
“Snowflakes”
,
“Multi-colored curtains”
,
“Swing”
,
“Cocktail”
,
“Football field”
,
“Magic ponytails”
, etc., which contribute to the development of the correct air stream.
“Colored mesh”
, “Clothespins (large, small,
“Telephone”
,
“Cereal pool”
,
“Buttons for a clown”
,
“Sandbox”
,
“Beads”
,
“Aquarium”
(with water,
“Merry Men”
, etc. contribute to the development of fine motor skills. There are also manuals for working with
sound , sound-letter analysis of words , syllabic structure of a word, grammatical structure of the language, for automation and differentiation of sounds : “Merry little frogs”
,
“Trains”
,
“Flowers in the meadow”
,
“ Magic yellow cube”
,
“Aquarium”
,
“Icicle grass”
,
,
Houses ”
,
“Make friends with words”
,
“Castle
of sounds ” ,
“Funny
sounds ” , various speech therapy lotto, etc. there is a lot of visual material in the office , drawn with your own hands.
I would like to pay attention to the physical minute. Physical exercise is one of the mandatory, well-thought-out elements in classes with children. It is necessary and important because it is a “minute” of active and healthy rest. The purpose of the procedure is to prevent fatigue, poor posture, vision and psycho-emotional relaxation. Physical exercises are loved by children. In my work, I observed how, during a familiar physical exercise, an insecure child relaxed, without noticing it, he overcame his motor awkwardness.
For children attending speech therapy groups, physical therapy is of particular importance. Pronouncing poetic texts with movements makes children's speech clearer , rhythmic, emotional, and also develops auditory perception , attention and memory in such children, develops coordination and improves general motor skills.
Thus, a thoughtful rest of 2-3 minutes contributes to the development of children’s , and can smoothly lead them to the next element or stage of the lesson.
The interaction between kindergarten specialists and families has always been and remains the center of attention. A modern teacher, teaching and raising children , along with parents, becomes a very significant adult for the child, therefore, the effectiveness of the formation and training of a preschooler’s personality largely depends on his ability to interact with the family.
According to his status, a speech therapist teacher is the main subject of correctional work with students. He develops the basic strategy and tactics for interaction between the preschool institution and the family to work together to correct the child’s speech , acts as an adviser, specialist consultant, and direct representative of the educational process in the field of correctional pedagogy.
We use the following methods of interaction:
• organization of parent conferences, meetings, non-traditional
workshop meetings showing fragments of classes using elements of sand therapy, testoplasty, finger theater, Kuznetsov applicators, Lyapko applicators from Argo, where parents become direct participants in the educational process;
• individual meetings between parents and speech therapist;
• thematic consultations;
• organizing a telephone line through which parents can
contact a speech therapist and get advice about home
tasks and methods for completing them or other issues of interest to parents;
• use of regular mail (mailbox based on the principle:
question answer);
• holding informal meetings of parents, children , and teachers
(holidays, round tables, etc.)
;
The work is aimed at increasing the level of pedagogical culture of parents, their activity in training and education. As a result of the diagnostic work, it was revealed that psychologically the parents are ready to support all the demands, activities and undertakings of the kindergarten. Even those parents who do not have pedagogical training and high education treat raising children .
Thus, the coordinated actions of the preschool educational institution and the family increased the efficiency of the education and training process. As a result of the work carried out, the feeling of constraint disappears in children , confidence in the ability to realize their goals is formed, self-control develops, and correct, clear, grammatically formed expressive speech is formed.
Despite the increase in the number of children with severe speech disorders, organized pedagogical activities contribute to high-quality learning of the material and produce stable results.
From experience in sound pronunciation correction
Dear friends, we are pleased to introduce you to Zhmud Svetlana Anatolyevna, teacher-speech therapist at the MBDOU “Child Development Center - Kindergarten” p. Bakchara, Tomsk region . Today Svetlana Anatolyevna is happy to share with us her professional experience in organizing correctional work in kindergarten and family settings. The methodological work is intended for teachers - speech therapists working in a speech center and dealing with the correction of oral speech.
A short commentary on the article from Svetlana Anatolyevna:
“The article reveals working methods that contribute to achieving positive dynamics in the correction of sound pronunciation.”
Useful reading...
From experience in correcting sound pronunciation.
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Impaired sound pronunciation is a serious problem, as it entails complications not only in oral but also in written speech. Even after corrected sound pronunciation, errors in writing remain for a long time, since the conditioned reflex connections of defective pronunciation in the cerebral cortex are not suppressed, and phonemic processes are disrupted. A child with defective pronunciation is often impaired in full communication with peers, and this leads to the formation of an inferiority complex. I am involved in sound pronunciation correction throughout the entire period of speech therapy work. It permeates all correctional work in school and preschool institutions. Mastery of sound production techniques is one of the main components of a speech therapist’s professionalism. Many scientists have dealt with this problem: T.B. Filicheva, G.V. Chirkina, L.N. Efimenkova, M.F. Fomicheva and others. Many books have been written that give clear recommendations for overcoming impaired sound pronunciation in children. The sequence in working on sound has been determined. Bogomolova A.I. recommends sound production in the following sequence: hissing, whistling, affricates, sonorators, if the child has several groups of sounds impaired. T.B. Filicheva recommends correcting deficiencies in sound pronunciation, taking into account the appearance of sounds in anthogenesis: whistling, hissing, sonorous sounds. The authors do not recommend using for simultaneous production those sounds whose articulation is characterized by directly opposite patterns. It is also not recommended to simultaneously work on the difficult sounds “r” and “sh”, because this leads to a large expenditure of energy and rapid fatigue. While maintaining a systematic and integrated approach in their work, working in parallel on the development of fine motor skills and auditory perception training, using massage and drug treatment, almost every speech therapist experiences difficulties, since every year there are more and more children with complex, persistent disorders. Often one child has three diagnoses: pseudobulbar dysarthria, hyperdynamic syndrome, mental retardation. The closure function of the cerebral cortex is weak, conditioned reflex connections are difficult to form, and control over one’s speech is weak. Sound production, automation and differentiation take a long time. There is minimal help from parents, especially in rural areas; there is often an opinion: “When you grow up, you will learn on your own.” In kindergartens at logo centers, the number of children is high - 25 or more. Although the speech center is supposed to correct mild speech disorders, in reality, more than half of the children have 2-3 diagnoses made at the Medical-Pedagogical Center. In addition to correcting sound pronunciation, a speech therapist needs to work on other aspects of speech. Placed in such difficult conditions, speech therapists look for the most effective ways to teach a child, often violating the “speech therapy postulates.” In case of complex speech disorders, when a child suffers from all groups of sounds, “go from the child,” taking into account that the path to the correct sound is for each child individual. So I start working on all the disturbed sounds at the same time. In a playful way, through articulation exercises, I begin to form patterns of disturbed sounds, and try out the production. The picture immediately becomes clearer, the possibility of producing this or that sound is visible. A work plan emerges: which sound to put first, and which one later. More often than not, the sound “L” comes first. By establishing it and consolidating it in speech, I am simultaneously working on the formation of the articulatory structure of the remaining sounds. There is no mutual inhibition of the movements of the articulation organs. So, when producing several sounds at the same time, often even with the opposite pattern, I monitor the child’s condition, dose the load, and alternate with rest. I also work on the difficult sounds “R” and “Sh” at the same time, taking into account that their articulatory structures are very close. While practicing articulation exercises for these two sounds, I try their production. As soon as one of the sounds “goes”, I begin to consolidate it, and continue to call out the other. If a child has whistling interdental teeth, then I deal with their production and automation last, since they take a very long time to be automated and more often remain at the stage of “desk speech.” The uvular sound “R” deserves special attention. Although it does not affect written speech, it is advisable to work on this sound too. We need to give the child a chance to introduce this sound to him, since approximately 20% of children use it in spontaneous speech. More often this happens in cases where a soft sound is pronounced correctly, but a hard sound is pronounced distorted. Considering that the duration of these classes should not exceed 15-20 minutes, because children get tired quickly, I use this time only for correcting sound pronunciation, and work on other aspects of speech in frontal classes. When performing articulation exercises and making sounds, I connect the child’s hand, it imitates the position of the articulation organs. “Proboscis” - the hand is in a pinch, “Slide” - the hand takes the shape of a slide, “Cup” - two palms are joined together and take the shape of a cup. When making the sound “L”, we imitate the movement of the tongue towards the teeth using his palm and my fingers, which act as his teeth. When making the sound “P”, we imitate the vibration of the front edge of the cup with our fingers, etc. Taking into account the age characteristics of children, I widely use gaming techniques and try to beat every exercise. For example, when making the sound “L,” I tell the child about how a curious tongue fell into a trap with its tail, and then pulled it out with force. The tip of the tongue, clamped between the teeth, is pulled out with force - a distinct “L” sound is heard. When doing the “Fence” exercise, I tell the child that different birds have landed on his fence: an angry crow, a pugnacious sparrow, a beautiful swallow, a cautious wagtail, etc. When performing the “Mushroom” exercise, I tell the child that under his beautiful fungus insects run, crawl, fly to hide from the rain: an ant, a butterfly, a caterpillar, and so on until 10. It rains, and the fungus grows higher and higher. When doing the “Cup” exercise, I talk about what funny kittens run to drink milk from his cup: gray, red, mottled, white with blue eyes, etc. These techniques help to maintain a static posture, the child has fun and interest, and he gets less tired. When making the sound “R” using a baby rubber pacifier from the fricative sound, we start the motor of the beetle (from the sound “zh”) and the wasp (from the sound “z”). For hissing or lateral sigmatism, when the sound must be “got” from the interdental position of the tongue, we play the game “Lisping Tongue” with the child. I show the child how funny it turns out if you say syllables and then words by sticking your tongue between your teeth. Then I invite the child to say the same. If the child does not succeed in interdental pronunciation, then we try interlabial pronunciation, automate it in words, and then return to interdental again. When the sound gets stronger, we “slide” to the desired articulation. When working on correcting sound pronunciation, I use visual control through a mirror, but the main preference is given to the child’s kinesthetic sensations. I use his ability to imitate by looking not in the mirror, but at the speech therapist’s organs of articulation, and when reproducing an articulation exercise, focus only on my muscle sensations. Speech therapy practice indicates that this technique is effective. The emotional contact between the child and the speech therapist is very important. Considering that in a favorable state the material is well perceived, I try to give each lesson an emotional coloring and influence the emotional sphere of the child. To do this, when automating sounds, we memorize a lot of poems with a funny plot that a child can understand. He hears expressive speech, becomes infected with emotions, and tries to say the same. I use teasers, negotiations, hooligans, songs, and theatrical elements. So in negotiations in a subgroup lesson, the winner is the one who remembers and recites the most poems and nursery rhymes using an automated sound. When automating the sound “L” we play pranks and bullies, shake our fingers at each other and swear: “La-la-la!”, “Ly-ly-ly!” Using the same sound, we sing a light tune of a song with syllables. At the stage of introducing sound into coherent speech, I use the texts of the chain organization “Connected by one chain”, according to the method of V.K. Vorobyova, as well as various everyday situations where the child is asked to talk about his friend or how he helps his mother at home. When correcting dysarthria, I use the technique of artificial local hypothermia. It is well described in the journal “Defectology” No. 2 for 1990. Crushed ice in gauze should be applied to the muscles of the speech-motor apparatus for 5-30 seconds in order to reduce muscle tension and increase their motor activity. Practice confirms the effectiveness of these techniques. Children enter school with normal sound pronunciation. This is achieved through an integrated approach using various techniques, including these:
- simultaneous work on all disturbed sounds;
- imitation of articulation exercises with hands;
- playing out articulation exercises;
- reliance on the child’s kinesthetic sensations;
- method of artificial local hypothermia;
- impact on the emotional sphere of the child.
Literature: “Speech therapy” by L.S. Volkova, “Fundamentals of speech therapy” by T.B. Filicheva, “Education of correct sound pronunciation in children” by M.F. Fomicheva, “Correction of speech sounds in children” by L.N. Efimenkova, “Speech therapy manual for children” by A.I. Bogomolova.
