Summer Speech Practice While Having Fun in the Sun!

Why One Hour a Week Can Make a Difference

Summer is a time for beach trips, vacations, camps, backyard barbecues, and making memories. It’s also a time when many parents worry about regression in speech and communication skills when school-based services pause or routines change.

The good news? Supporting speech development over the summer does not require hours of drills, worksheets, or sitting at a table every day.

In fact, research suggests that even small amounts of consistent practice can have a meaningful impact.

A recent study by Namasivayam and colleagues (2024) examined factors that predict functional communication outcomes in children with motor speech disorders. One of the key findings was that children who received just one additional hour of home practice per week demonstrated approximately a 7% increase in the likelihood of achieving meaningful communication improvements.

The Power of Distributed Practice

One of the biggest misconceptions about speech therapy carryover is that practice needs to happen in long sessions. We know from motor learning research that shorter, more frequent opportunities often produce better learning than occasional marathon practice sessions.

That means 8-10 minutes a day while you’re already doing everyday activities can be enough to support continued progress.

Taking Speech Practice to the Beach

The beach provides countless opportunities to practice speech, language, motor planning, and communication skills naturally.

Build and Describe

While building sandcastles, encourage your child to:

• Request tools
• Describe what they are making
• Use target sounds in words
• Practice longer phrases

Examples:

• “Big castle”
• “More sand”
• “Dig deeper”
• “My tower fell down”

Treasure Hunts

Search for shells, rocks, or sea glass.

Practice:

• Naming items
• Following directions
• Describing size, color, and texture
• Using target words multiple times

Movement + Speech

Many children with motor speech challenges benefit from pairing movement with communication.

Try:

• Jumping waves while practicing target words
• Walking and talking
• Collecting shells while producing speech targets
• Playing “I Spy”

Movement often helps maintain engagement while reducing the feeling that speech practice is work.

Speech Practice During Summer Adventures

At the Pool

Work on:

• Asking questions
• Following multi-step directions
• Practicing speech targets during games
• Turn-taking conversations

During Road Trips

Play:

• Guessing games
• Category games
• Rhyming games
• Story-building activities

For children working on motor speech goals, use target words during the drive and celebrate successful productions without making it feel like therapy.

At the Grocery Store

Practice:

• Naming foods
• Requesting items
• Reading labels
• Describing categories

Real-life communication opportunities are often more powerful than flashcards.

Quality Matters More Than Quantity

Parents often ask:

“How much should we practice?”

The answer isn’t necessarily more.

It’s better.

Focus on:

• High engagement
• Positive interactions
• Brief opportunities throughout the week
• Successful communication experiences

If your child practices for 10 minutes while collecting shells, 10 minutes during a walk, and another 10 minutes while helping make lunch, those minutes add up quickly.

Keep Expectations Realistic

Summer should still feel like summer.

Children need time to play, explore, relax, and be kids.

Rather than creating another schedule to follow, look for opportunities that already exist in your family’s day.

Speech practice can happen:

• At the beach
• On vacation
• At the playground
• During a picnic
• While cooking dinner
• During family game night

The best practice often happens when children don’t even realize they’re practicing.

A Challenge for This Summer

This summer, aim for one extra hour of communication practice each week. Spread it across seven days. Based on the findings from Namasivayam et al. (2024), that single hour may increase the likelihood of meaningful communication change by approximately 7%.

Small moments create big progress. And those moments can happen anywhere—from the therapy room to the shoreline.

Reference

Namasivayam, A. K., Shin, H., Nisenbaum, R., Pukonen, M., & van Lieshout, P. (2024). Predictors of Functional Communication Outcomes in Children With Idiopathic Motor Speech Disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 67(10S), 4053–4068.