In infancy, the practice of oral muscle operation ability is the first stage of development. For example, the action of oral sucking will increase the muscle strength of cheek muscles. After a child starts teething, some moderate foods that need to be chewed are not only nutritional supplements, but also exercises the occlusal ability of the buccal muscles and the upper and lower jaws, which will also affect the pronunciation of future children. Some parents like to cook all the food together and then feed it to their children. In this way, children will lack chewing exercise in the mouth, the mouth shape of children will be inaccurate when they learn to speak, and the tongue will not coordinate with the upper and lower jaw movements.
When the child is about 4 years old, if the above situation still occurs, it may be that the child's oral muscles are developing slowly. The following games can exercise children's small oral muscles, tongue flexibility and muscle strength.
Game 1: Blow paper towels-help practice pronunciation. You and your children, each with a tissue, gently pinch the two corners of the upper end of the tissue with both hands, and the lower end is facing your mouth. Then you show your child how to pronounce "P" in his mouth (the vocal cords don't vibrate and the airflow is silent when pronouncing). At this time, you should remind your child to pay attention to the mouth shape when pronouncing, that is, exhale immediately after the lips are lightly closed and bounce off the lips. When the pronunciation is correct, the facial tissue will be blown away and will not spray saliva on the paper.
Game 2: Blow out candles-enhance the muscle strength of the little cheeks. Arrange 10 small candles in a row with an interval of about 5 cm. After lighting the candle, let the child take a breath and blow it. Count how many candles he can blow out at a time. Of course, you can also find a few children to play together to increase the fun of the game, or you can let the children play more times and try to blow out as many as possible!
Game 3: Tongue movement-promote the movement of tongue frenulum. For younger children, honey can be applied to the periphery of lips, and then children are encouraged to lick the honey around their lips with their tongues. This can make the child's tongue fully active, increase the flexibility of the tongue, help the child to put the tongue in an accurate position when he speaks in the future, and also help the child to keep the pronunciation clear when he speaks quickly. If the child is older, there is no need to apply honey. You can let your child stand in front of the mirror and play the same game, and let the child observe the movement of the tongue by himself!
Game 4: Make faces-practice your mouth. Pronunciation of mouth shapes also involves the accuracy of pronunciation. Therefore, children can be allowed to play grimace games in front of the mirror. For example, when making the sound of "ah", their mouths should be opened to the maximum, and when making the sound of "ou", their mouths should be rounded, so that children can make different mouth shapes in front of the mirror to pronounce, so that they can feel the difference of sounds made by different mouth shapes.
In addition, we should remind parents not to correct or criticize their children when their pronunciation is inaccurate or wrong. Because this will not only increase children's frustration and pressure in language learning, but also easily lead to negative reinforcement. At this time, the best way is for you to say the correct pronunciation again. As long as the correct pronunciation is repeated several times, the child will naturally learn it.