Three-syllable words made fun: How I use play to build speech skills
Why spend time on syllables?
Sounds have to be organised into syllables, words and phrases. A child needs to coordinate these parts to produce longer words successfully.
This can be particularly relevant for children who:
- leave out parts of longer words
- simplify multisyllabic words
- have reduced speech intelligibility
- have phonological difficulties
- have difficulty remembering or organising the sound sequence in a word
- have suspected or diagnosed Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)
- find longer or more complex words particularly difficult.
For children with speech sound disorders, phonological awareness is important because speech sound development and awareness of the sound structure of words are connected areas of development.
When creating new habits, new motor plans,new anything repetition is important!
But the way we get to that repetition can be playful and creative.
Today I give you a little window into one of my recent speech therapy sessions. I was working on three-syllable words, words such as ladybird, butterfly and other longer words that contain three ‘beats’.
I used five very simple activities:
- playdough
- two different versions of Snap
- an online activity
- stickers.
None of these activities are complicated or expensive. What matters is how the activity is being used and what the child is practising within it.
Video examples
Here are five little clips from the session so you can see what I mean.
Squashing the syllables with playdough
In my first clip, you can see me using three blobs of playdough with picture cards.
The child places or squashes one blob onto each part of the word.
For example:
LA – DY – BIRD
Three blobs. Three beats.
This gives the child something very concrete to see and feel while they are listening to the word.
We can squash:
- 🟢 LA
- 🟢 DY
- 🟢 BIRD
And then say the whole word: LADYBIRD.
Next came Snap.
I used cards containing the target words and played two different versions of the game.
This is where something very simple becomes surprisingly useful.
The child isn’t just practising ‘ladybird, ladybird, ladybird…’
Instead, they are playing a game.
They have to look. They have to listen. They have to wait. They take a turn.
And, importantly, they have a reason to say the word.
When a card appears, we can practise the three syllables: LA – DY – BIRD
Then we might say it again naturally: ‘I got ladybird!’
This gives us repeated opportunities to practise the target word while keeping the activity meaningful.
Taking the practice online
The fourth clip shows an online activity.
Here, the online pictures provide another opportunity to look at a picture, identify the word and break it into its three syllables.
My child taps each syllable.
Thun-der-storm
👏 👏 👏
The visual presentation can be particularly helpful for children who benefit from seeing exactly what we are talking about.
And we can move between levels of difficulty.
First:
How many beats can you hear?
Then:
Can you say the word with me?
Then:
Can you say it by yourself?
That progression is important. We build the steps.
This time, I used a sticker sheet
We practise:
TAKE – IT – OFF
👏 👏 👏
Three syllables.
And then we can reverse the action:
PUT – IT – ON
👏 👏 👏
Three syllables again.
This is a lovely example of why I like to work on speech within real actions and little phrases, rather than only isolated words.
The child has an actual reason to communicate.
They want the sticker. They want to take it off. They want to put it somewhere.
And suddenly our three-syllable practice is also helping with:
- verbs
- little phrases
- following an action
- understanding language
- turn-taking
- functional communication.
So although my clinical focus might be syllable structure and speech production, I am still thinking about the whole child and the whole communication experience.
And eventually we want those words to become part of everyday communication rather than something that only happens during therapy.
That is the real goal.
A little bit of research
A useful recent article by Brosseau-Lapré and Roepke (2024) looked at phonological awareness skills in preschool children with speech sound disorders. Through three case studies, the authors highlighted that children with speech sound disorders can have very different profiles of phonological and pre-literacy skills, and that children with more atypical and omission-type speech errors were more likely to show phonological awareness difficulties.
It is another reminder that speech development is wonderfully complex, and that sometimes a seemingly simple activity, such as putting three blobs of playdough onto a picture, can have a very specific clinical purpose behind it.
If you are concerned about your child’s speech, a speech and language therapist can help identify whether the difficulty is primarily related to speech sounds, phonological patterns, syllable structure, motor planning, language development, or a combination of factors.
Any questions please contact me via my contact form.
Sonja McGeachie
Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist
Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
Reference
Brosseau-Lapré, Françoise & Roepke, Elizabeth. (2024). Beyond Sounds: Decoding Speech Errors and Phonological Awareness in Preschoolers. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. 9. 922-934. 10.1044/2024_PERSP-24-00001.
