Top Tips For Making the K Sound At Home

Here are 3 ways to support a child (or adult) learning the /k/ sound at home. These are NOT a replacement for speech therapy, but they are a great way to practice at home.

Looking for ways to practice at home? Check out our k sound book list.

I am focused on /k/ here, but want to talk briefly about the different between /k/ and /g/. The main difference between /g/ and /k/ is that your voice is “off” for /k/ (it is a quiet sound, focused on air and not on voicing) and “on” for /g/ (this is a noisy sound, where we need to be voicing to make it accurately), so getting the accurate tongue placement and productions of /k/ first can sometimes help with them acquiring or practicing the /g/ sound after.

1. Coughing Sound

We can describe the /k/ sound as our”coughing sound” and can practice coughing to build the child’s awareness of the back of their tongue. This can help to teach your child how to cut off the air flow with the back of his tongue instead of the tongue tip.

2. Use a Toothbrush

This is much easier to implement when you have watched an example of someone else doing it first, and there are many such examples of therapists modeling this on YouTube. Talk to your speech therapist about practicing this at home too! You will use a toothbrush, lollipop or tongue depressor to hold down the front of your child’s tongue and then encourage them to try and raise the back of their tongue to cough or try to produce the /k/ sound. You can also use the toothbrush to lightly push their tongue back in their mouths in order to promote that bunched tongue in the mouth for an accurate /k/. Of course, be gentle and don’t push back very far, we don’t want to initiate a child’s gag reflex!

3. Use a Mirror

Grab a mirror (or use the front facing camera on your tablet or phone) and model the /k/ sound in the mirror, encourage your child to watch your face and tongue placement in the mirror. Then, encourage your child to watch her own face in the mirror and watch where her tongue is going in her mouth. You want to continue building that awareness of the back of the tongue and mouth, and have them practice with raising that portion of their tongue for the accurate /k/ sound.

I hope you found these helpful, feel free to reach out to us if you’re looking for even more strategies for /k/ sound.

Looking for the best picture books for /k/? Click here!