Pack Three

Rhyming

Rhyme is all about manipulating oral language. It helps children improve their oral language overall. A multitude of research has shown a correlation between rhyming mastery and eventual reading preparedness.

Rhyming is a great way to teach children the connection between the sound of a word and how it’s written. It helps them notice and work with the sounds within words.

Remember this is a skill that can be developed. If at first your child has a little difficulty with rhyming activities, take this as a prompt to incorporate rhyme into your everyday lives. Singing, rhyming, and story-telling activities can be done in the bath, on a walk, around the dinner table or in the car. It is easy to integrate into your lives and the benefits are multiple.

For more ways to instil a love of rhyme in your child checkout our Pinterest Board Rhyming & Climbing.

Oral Motor

The term oral motor refers to the use and function of the muscles of the face (lips, tongue and jaw). For clear articulation, chewing and swallowing, children need to have the right amount of strength, breath control, range of motion and coordination.

Our oral motor activities are fun, sensory activities for exercising breathing and muscles through sounds and games. Blowing helps to build muscle tone in the cheeks and lips, as well as improving breath control. Straws, whistles and bubbles are fun and engaging for children and they help to strengthen those much-needed muscles.

Blowing bubbles is a great oral exercise for breath control, helping shape the mouth, as well as pursing the lips. The ability to blow is essential for sound production. Blowing bubbles helps a child coordinate their lips, cheeks and jaw with airflow necessary for speech production.

Whistles are another great oral motor exercise for breath control and lip pursing – and they get to make some noise!  You could also try a harmonica, flute, or a kazoo to encourage vocal control. Encourage children to sustain the length of their blow to develop greater diaphragm action.

Blowing and sucking through straws involves lip closure and tones the muscles in children’s cheeks. You can use mirrors for mouth awareness.

Moving the mouth and tongue in different ways is very effective for strengthening facial muscles and aiding speech development. The more pronounced the muscles of the mouth and tongue are, the easier it is for children to move their tongue and lips to string sounds together to form words. These activities can increase control of the muscles of the mouth and face for eating, drinking, saliva control and speaking.

Straws are a wonderful oral motor activity. Drinking from a straw requires a lot of oral motor work: the lips must be pursed and closed around the straw, the tongue tense and retracted and the cheeks taut. Long, curly straws give the muscles around the mouth an extra work out when drinking. Sucking is a calming and organising activity that requires closing of the lips, lip strength, and the ability to hold the jaw in position. Sucking also uses cheek muscles, helps breathing, and promotes good posture.

Stimulating the mouth can also have a positive effect on the nervous system. The activities can encourage deep breathing which helps to organise and regulate the child.

Other fun activities to try:

• Use a vibrating toothbrush for their mouth (move the toothbrush around their entire mouth if they will let you) to stimulate the muscles, and promote more musculature awareness.
• Give your child different textures of foods. Try various foods such as spicy foods, crunchy foods, and sour flavours.
• Play a funny face making game with a mirror. Make silly faces in the mirror while you are brushing your child’s teeth at night and try to get them to imitate you. This is a natural time to be in front of a mirror, so it is a perfect time to try some oral motor exercises! These exercises work on overall facial muscle control and movement and allow your child to see what happens when they move their lips, cheeks, and tongue in different ways. These can help aid articulation difficulties. Some examples include sticking out your tongue, puckering your lips and opening your mouth. Try to play a funny face making game without the mirror as well.