Dave Drummer’s Sound
Below you will find BONUS ACTIVITIES that come with your purchase of The Speech Sound Set Alphabet Cards.
Note that in this series, only lower-case non-cursive letters are included. Lower-case letters are certainly more difficult to write than capitals, but this resource is about exposing children to the look of the letters that they will be seeing in the sentences of their ‘readers’ (books) when they begin formal schooling.
Buy The Speech Sound Set Alphabet CardsAbout the Sound
This is a quick, loud sound that relies on movement of the tongue.
Sound Pair
A sound pair is another sound that is made in the same way – only one of the pairs is LOUD (uses voice) and the other is SOFT (uses no voice, is whispered). Not all sounds have a pair. When a sound is involved with a speech error, often (but not always) the Sound Pair will also be involved in the same speech error.
The sounds of Dave Drummer (loud) and Tapping Tessa (soft) are Sound Pairs.
When it Develops
This sound is often heard in a baby’s babble “dada dada!” It is usually produced correctly in words by the time a child turns 3 years.
How it is Made. Raise the tip of your tongue to touch the top the mouth right behind your front teeth. You can see Dave’s tongue rising up in the picture. (He does this as his drumstick rises). Bang your tongue down as you say a loud, quick /d/ sound.
Common Errors
Remember, some speech sound errors are perfectly NORMAL as a child develops in their ability to speak clearly.
1) A young speaker might leave the /d/ sound off the start of the word “delicious” and say “licious” instead. This however is not a difficulty saying Dave Drummer’s sound /d/. Instead, it is a normal developmental error that preschoolers sometimes exhibit. The error is in the child leaving off the quick syllable (beat) of a word and it can happen across lots of words. For this reason the child says “licious” for “delicious” (leaving off the unstressed “de” syllable). This child wouldn’t only do this with syllables beginning with the/d/ sound. They’d say “puter” for “computer” and “mote” for “remote.” This error is called WEAK SYLLABLE DELETION. This error can be a part of normal speech development for a child and naturally resolves by the age 4 years.
2) When trying to say words starting with the blend ‘dr’ some children might produce the sound /j/. (“jink” for “drink” and “jy” for “dry”). Saying blends can be tricky. It’s not an issue with the production of /d/ as such. Usually by the time a child starts school, they have stopped doing this. You can help them by repeating the word back, slowly down as you say the /d/ and /r/ sound so they are a little more distinct.
3) A child says the /j/ sound instead of the /d/ sound in words like “sand dune” (“sand june“), “my library book is due” (“jew“). Fear not! This is totally normal in the way many Australians pronounce these words – even as adults. Think about how you say the d in “education”. I bet you don’t say a pure /d/ sound! (Is it more like “ejucation?”)
4) Tongue-tie is a condition where the small piece of skin under the tongue is abnormally short or tight, restricting the tongue’s movement. Usually this does not cause any issues, however in some instances the tongue-tie is extreme resulting in an inability to raise the tongue tip. If this is the case, the tongue is almost “pinned” down and the child will have issues making a range of sounds including Dave Drummer’s /d/, Tapping Tessa’s /t/, Nosy Nick’s /n/ and Lovely Lara’s /l/. A baby with a significant tongue-tie may also have issues with early feeding. Rarely, do tongue-ties get “snipped”. Instead, the piece of skin often stretches as the young child grows. *Below is a clip that you can use to see if your child can lick their lips with their tongue. If they can, their tongue tie is probably not significant. If you remain concerned about tongue-tie and a possible speech development issue, please contact a speech pathologist.
About the Letter
The lower-case letter used in this set is the non-cursive letter d. Non-cursive is what is most often seen in text and in the world around a child, so we encourage all written text to be presented in non-cursive in the preschool setting.
This letter is the SAME as the lower-case letter b – only reversed – thus the two are often confused in the initial stages.
The letter d starts with the Curly Cat shape – so often it is good to get that sorted first (see About the Letter C for a Curly Cat download).
The letter’s name is pronounced “dee”. This letter is acrophonic meaning the letter name starts with the sound it represents. Acrophonic letter-sound links are generally easier to learn.
Activities
Colour-In
1. Learners can be shown how to form the letter, starting at the star. If there are two possible ways the writer could head with their pencil (or crayon), they should head towards the smaller star next. Try and give consistent instructions for the letter formation. E.g. “Down, back up and then round”. 2. Children can practise again and again within the outline. Using different colours can make it more fun. 3. Together look at the pictures, name each and LISTEN for the first sound of each word. It will begin with the target sound. 4. You can point to the first letter in each word. Name the letter.
Picture Cards
Each picture begins with the target sound. You can print these out and make cards or just look at them on a device.
1) Cards can be used for these for a range of games such as SNAP, BINGO or MEMORY.
2) Start a double-spread page in a scrapbook for each sound. Paste in the colour-in (above), practise writing the letter and cut out and paste the pictures on the pages.
3) Combine them with another set from a different sound and do a SORTING ACTIVITY.
4)Make a poster for each sound and paste on the corresponding pictures.