Katy Smith
Children struggling with the /th/ sound
I am a special education teacher with life skills students. All but one of my students are verbal, so we are really stretching their communication skills to help them participate better in inclusion settings. I have several students struggling with the /th/ and /L/ sounds. That bottom lip just comes up automatically when they attempt /th/ and sticks OUT when trying to produce the /L/ sound! I am about to try the "Teeth and Tongue Sandwich" method for /th/ and placing something sweet on the backs of their front teeth for the /L/ sound. I have already tried "stick your tongue out at me" and practicing raspberries, modeling the mouth movements for both sounds, but so far I've seen very little improvement. This is leading to a LOT of difficulty with spelling words such as Thursday, This, The. Our SLP is also helping them, but I am looking for any new ideas. What other techniques have y'all tried?
