Super Star Speech: Speech Therapy Made Simple
Since all three of my children have trouble with one to two speech sounds each, I was eager to review this product and be able to help them at home. Super Star Speech is .... full of instructions and activities for teaching your child how to articulate sounds correctly. Deborah Lott has a master's degree in Speech Language Pathology. She is also a homeschool mother of four. There is a very encouraging one-page introduction in which the author says that she expects parents of children in her private practice to work with their children at home. Because of their ability to provide consistent daily practice, parents are in an excellent position to correct their children's speech sound errors at home. Super Star Speech is a thorough, all-inclusive speech therapy program. Not only does it contain instructions for all the problem speech sounds, the games are included as well. The book is suitable for ages three and up. But the author points out in her introduction that many children don't have perfect articulation until age seven. After the introduction, there is an articulation test and directions on how to administer it. The test form categorizes the sounds according to the age at which most children have mastered them. This helps parents understand which sounds need to be worked on and which ones are likely to self-correct with maturity. I like the tone of the book. The author doesn't hold her expertise over the reader but acknowledges that parents know their children well. The test may be omitted if you are certain that your child only has one or two error sounds and you therefore already know which sounds to begin teaching. The next chapter is entitled Speech Therapy, which is three pages of teaching instruction, including five therapy steps and a list of general tips. Following this is Specific Sound Instructions, which indeed gives specific instruction on how the sound is produced, tips for getting the child to produce the sound correctly, and word lists for each sound. I have read whatever I can find on correct pronunciation of sounds, and Super Star Speech contains more helps than anything I've yet seen. Many suggestions are given, so if one method doesn't seem to produce results, there are many other approaches to try. Finally, there is a list of games and activities to make speech therapy fun for you and your child. Five games are provided in the Super Star Speech book itself. There is a set of two-inch square picture sound cards.... My kids loved playing concentration/memory with these and got lots of practice with their target sounds. There are also four board games and nine activity sheets for children to complete. Finally, there is a short bibliography and blank masters for creating lesson plans and testing your child. The book is well organized, and the pages have a pleasant and easy-to-read layout. The instructions are concise, so you can get right to it. Super Star Speech is a kind and thoughtful gift from the author to parents of children with speech problems. There are very few speech therapy programs out there for the layman, and even many speech therapy websites are geared to the professional. Compared to what I have seen, this book is less expensive and more user friendly. --The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, LLC thehomeschoolmagazine.com