What are the best strategies for helping a preschool or kindergarten child reach their speech goals?

The most useful strategy is to build playful practice into daily routines, following the plan your child's speech-language pathologist (SLP) sets. Goals in these years should come from an assessment, because what is typical changes quickly. Children become easier to understand gradually: family members usually understand most of what a three-year-old says, while people who do not know the child may find their speech hard to follow for several more years. Newer research cited by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association shows this keeps developing well past age 4.

Strategies that line up with what SLPs do in therapy:

• Match the home plan: therapy for speech sounds usually moves from learning a sound to using it in words, sentences and stories. Ask your SLP which step your child is on so practice at home fits.

• Repeat it back correctly: if your child says "tat" for "cat", you can reply "Yes, a cat!" SLPs use this kind of recast as a technique, without asking the child to repeat after you.

• Let them hear the sound often: hearing many examples of a target sound, sometimes in a story, is part of some speech sound approaches. Books that use the sound a lot make easy practice.

• Talk and read every day: HealthLinkBC notes that children build speech and language skills by talking with adults, that daily reading helps, and recommends keeping screen time to an hour a day or less.

• Make time with other children: children who often play with others about the same age usually gain expressive language sooner.

If your child is hard for others to understand for their age, or you are unsure whether their speech is on track, talk with a registered speech-language pathologist.