How to improve diction and clarity of speech: 5 effective exercises

Hello dear readers! Lyudmila Redkina is with you. Take your time, you are walking along the embankment and a lebenak approaches you. He shouts: “Auntie/uncle, mother, how I am doing!” Give me some kaaku!” Which means: “Aunt/Uncle, watch me play! Give me some candy!” It’s probably unusual for you to read such words, right? And hearing them is even more fun! Today we’ll talk to you about how to improve your diction and clarity of speech, so that there won’t be something like this: “password”, “do you have a muse? - but I don’t have a muse, that’s such a bad thing in life!”, “girl, huh?” do you like Kafka?, – yes, especially Grefneva…” and so on.

COMPLETE LIST OF HUMAN SKILLS

Why do you need good diction?

First, let's figure out what diction is and why we should care about it.

Diction is a clear, clear pronunciation when a person pronounces words and phrases clearly and legibly. A person with good speech does not “suffer” from a lisp, nasal tone, or stuttering.
Good diction is not a requirement only for TV presenters and teachers. Everyone needs it in life and everyday life. We all get a job, communicate among our circle of acquaintances, we don’t know, in the end, where we will be “taken”, where and with whom we will interact.

A very striking example of a person with “good” diction was from 2021 to 2019 in the Supreme Council of Ukraine - A.V. Parubiy. Everyone who could laugh at his speech, because it’s not often that you hear a SPEAKER (from the word “speak”) of a country’s council with such diction! This is exactly what I mean: we need to take care of improving the quality of speech now, learn to speak beautifully, so as not to make people laugh later...

Exercises to train the muscles of the tongue and normalize the type of swallowing

Exercise No. 1 “Clock”. The mouth is open, the tongue makes slow circular movements along the upper lip, then along the lower lip.

Exercise No. 2 “Punish the naughty tongue.” Place your tongue on your lower lip and slap it with your upper lip “na-na.”

Exercise No. 3 “We will paint the ceiling.” It's time to paint the rooms, they invited a molar, he comes to the old house with a new brush and bucket. Your tongues are a brush, your hard palate is the ceiling...

Exercise No. 4 Depict the operation of a jackhammer. DDDD...

Exercise No. 5 “Riders”. Sit astride a chair and, opening your mouth wide, click your tongue.

Exercises to improve diction and speech clarity

Philologists have studied the issue of the development of diction and come to the conclusion that many people need to improve the articulation of speech of the Russian-speaking population. This is due to the fact that the Russian language is distinguished by “lazy” articulation, unlike English, for example.

There are even certain ways to check if you have good articulation for clear speech:

Take a mirror and, looking into it, pronounce vowel sounds (a, o, i, e, u, s). Do your lips change position and shape? If they move well and change shape, then you are on the right track.
Tongue mobility is important for good articulation. Roll it up into a tube. If it does not work out, it is due to muscle weakness or a congenital feature. But you can develop!
It is also important to open your mouth well. To check this, prepare your palm without the thumb. Then open your mouth as much as possible, slide 4 fingers inward between the upper and lower jaw. If you managed to do this, then your mouth opens without clamps, which means the muscles are ready to work.

So, we’ve sorted out the diagnostics, now let’s decide what to do to develop speech and improve articulation. I present to you several effective exercises to help you achieve your goal.

Warm-up

Take a pen or pencil between your teeth and say any sentence or phrase of 10–15 words. In this case, the pencil must be squeezed as hard as possible. Then take out the stationery object and say the phrase again. You will hear the difference immediately! The entire articulatory apparatus will be tuned to correct speaking, precise and accurate.

It is enough to warm up with a pencil for up to 5 minutes before exercises; this exercise is necessary to “pump up” the articulation muscles.

You can also warm up with nuts. Demosthenes in Ancient Greece developed a unique method of training speech with stones. On the seashore, he picked up a mouthful of stones and shouted words into the stormy sea, trying to pronounce them clearly. Practicing with nuts does almost the same thing. You put them in your mouth and try to pronounce the speech-improving words as best you can.

Warm up with a pencil

Tongue Twisters

At home, you can perfectly improve your speech pronunciation, because everyone has pencils and access to tongue twisters. This is the minimum set of articulation development. But let's move on.

Tongue twisters are used for children aged 4–6 years. This is a very effective way. Tongue twisters are also used to improve the diction of adults; below I will write the most effective of them. In addition, with such phrases you improve not only your speech, but also your vocabulary. Select the tongue twisters you need, just focus on working out all the letters and their combinations.

Listen to a recording of your voice

Oh, I don’t really like listening to my records. I remember how I once heard my childish and funny voice on the recorder, and I was saying quite serious things... I and all my friends laughed at the recording.

But for the development of clear and competent speech, listening to your voice on a recording is a very useful activity. Almost every person will want to change it, work on diction. You need to do it this way: you take some passage from the text, then clearly try to read it, recording it on a voice recorder. If you didn’t like the entry, repeat reading. And so on until you perfect your pronunciation.

The same can be done to improve your English speaking. You can also bring in a good friend who speaks English to listen to an “expert” opinion.

A prerequisite is diaphragm training.

For vocalists and people who stutter, the diaphragm is a condition for success. Who would have thought that some kind of bridge over the stomach determines a lot of money in show business! But for correct speech and singing, mandatory training of this very diaphragm is necessary. A trained diaphragm makes it possible to finish a phrase and finish singing it.

You can train it this way: take a deep breath, then draw out the vowel sound until there is no breath left at all.

When you reach 25-30 seconds of this “pulling”, change the pitch of your voice, try to draw out the sound in a thinner voice.

When and under this condition you stretch the vowel to 25-30 seconds, proceed to inflating balloons. It’s good for your body, and you’ll please those around you! Well, jokes aside, inflating balloons very well develops the diaphragm and increases lung volume.

Combination of different sounds

In addition to tongue twisters, correct speech and diction can be achieved using special combinations of sounds. These combinations use consonants and vowels. By repeating them 5 times, you practice diction. Well, competent speech is added by the experience of reading different books (I’ll give a list below). What combinations will be useful:

bgi-pki, bga-pka, bge-pke;
vzdri-fstri, vzdro-fstro, vzdry-fstro;
stri-ztri, stra-ztra, stro-ztro;
gkru-khkru, gkro-khkro, gkra-khkra, etc.

Exercises to train the muscles of the tongue and normalize the type of swallowing

Exercise No. 1 “Clock”. The mouth is open, the tongue makes slow circular movements along the upper lip, then along the lower lip.

Exercise No. 2 “Punish the naughty tongue.” Place your tongue on your lower lip and slap it with your upper lip “na-na.”

Exercise No. 4 Depict the operation of a jackhammer. DDDD...

Exercise No. 5 “Riders”. Sit astride a chair and, opening your mouth wide, click your tongue.

Recommendation from the author of the blog – Pavel Butor

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General rules and recommendations

To achieve a positive result, you must strictly adhere to certain rules, which include the following points:

training should be carried out in a relaxed atmosphere;
the patient should be calm;
all kinds of interference are excluded (turned on TV, etc.);
the duration of one lesson lasts at least 10 minutes;
lessons should be started gradually from 3 minutes;
number of workouts per day – 4-6 times;
you will have to strictly follow all the instructions of the treating speech therapist;
It is important to diversify your classes and think through their course in advance.

Features of classes with children

Children, due to their age, do not understand the importance of speech therapy training, so they need to be interested. To do this, a variety of gaming tricks are used. In addition, the following principles must be adhered to:

each lesson should be interesting, memorable and varied;
It is forbidden to shout at the child or scold him for lack of interest in exercises;
it is important to encourage and praise all the time, even if nothing is working out yet;
parents must pronounce all words clearly and understandably, since children always copy adults;
to show interest, you can do exercises in front of a mirror (many of them involve creating grimaces and funny faces);
read books out loud more often and talk more (talk through all the child’s actions, your own and those happening around you);
During therapy, frequent computer games where there is silence are excluded;
You should not abruptly interrupt the child if he pronounces a sound incorrectly.

The most important thing when working with children is to be patient and treat them with love. Only a friendly attitude will allow you to achieve the desired effect.

Features of classes with adults

The adult population takes speech therapy problems very seriously, and therefore performs the exercises responsibly. However, not in all cases a person can perform this or that movement exactly, so the help of a specialist is required.

Classes with adults are based on many manipulations, but the pronunciation of tongue twisters is especially effective. This should be done this way:

try to learn the tongue twister by heart by reading it several times;
pronounce the memorized phrase at a slow pace, trying to clearly pronounce each sound;
Gradually increase your pronunciation speed until you achieve a positive result.

At the initial stages, learn tongue twisters containing a small set of words. Be sure to pronounce them in one breath.

The most effective tongue twisters for improving diction in adults

I wrote above about the importance of tongue twisters for the development of ideal diction for an adult. I will only note that after recording your voice, you must decide which speech sounds do not suit you. Perhaps it will be hissing or “l-r”, or other sounds. And in accordance with your observations, select tongue twisters that work specifically on them. And for prevention, you can train them all.

The Ligurian traffic controller regulated in Liguria.
The protocol about the protocol was recorded by the protocol.
Don’t smoke, Turk, pipe, better buy a pile of peaks, better buy a pile of peaks.
The angry widow put the firewood into the barn: once firewood, two firewood, three firewood - all the firewood could not fit, and two woodcutters, two woodcutters, for the emotional Varvara, expelled the firewood across the width of the yard back to the woodyard, where the heron withered, the heron withered, the heron died .
Just as you can’t ring all the bells, you can’t beat them again, you can’t beat all the tongue twisters, you can’t speed them up, but trying is not torture.

Well, something easier.

Tell us about your purchases, about which purchases, about your purchases, about your purchases, about your purchases.
The bull was blunt-lipped, the bull was blunt-lipped, the bull's white lip was dull.
The pig snouted, white-nosed, blunt-nosed, dug up half the yard with its snout, dug, dug.
Advertising for grips has seams with coverage, but potholders without coverage have been snatched up.
In the shallows we lazily caught burbot, in the shallows we caught tench.
Their pesticides are not comparable to ours in terms of their pesticide effectiveness.
We ate and ate ruffs at the spruce tree, we barely finished them off.
Appreciates the flail cut by the braid.
The hedgehog has a hedgehog, the snake has a squeeze.
From the clatter of hooves, dust flies across the field.

Tongue twisters are good for developing memory and attention in adults, in addition to speech.

Tongue twister to improve diction

Speech therapy exercises after stroke

The post-stroke condition requires speech therapy intervention, so modern medicine offers the following exercises:

tongue clicking;
the hiss of a snake with its tongue stuck out as much as possible;
developing a wide smile;
creating a grin with teeth without sound;
chant of the sound “o”;
rolling the tongue into a tube;
reaching the nose and chin with the tongue;
loud kissing of the palm with smacking (lips with a tube).

With the help of speech therapy exercises, you can achieve amazing results for both adults and children. The only rule is strict adherence to the requirements for each lesson and the consistency of their implementation. To accurately perform the training, it is better to consult a speech therapist.

Books that improve speech and vocabulary

To improve your speech, you need to read texts on different topics. In this situation, speech is enriched with new words, logic appears in statements, and speech literacy improves. You won’t find a professor who couldn’t connect two words or said “here”, “there”, “tuta”, “Thursday”, “sERtse”. This is because books improve the rhetoric of speech and help formulate thoughts.

I have made a selection of books that can become for you lessons in the Russian language, literature, as well as an excursion into linguistics and other philological sciences.

Vadim Khrappa “From Adam’s apple to the apple of discord.”
Korney Chukovsky “Alive as life.”
Larry King: How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere.
Nigel Brown "The Oddities of Our Language"
Natalya Rom “I want to speak beautifully! Speech techniques.”
Victoria Volodina “Album on speech development.”
Lev Uspensky “A Word about Words.”

These books will help you improve your spoken Russian, and with their help you will determine how to use unfamiliar words for their intended purpose.

Exercises to train the muscles of the tongue and normalize the type of swallowing

Exercise No. 1 “Clock”. The mouth is open, the tongue makes slow circular movements along the upper lip, then along the lower lip.

Exercise No. 2 “Punish the naughty tongue.” Place your tongue on your lower lip and slap it with your upper lip “na-na.”

Exercise No. 4 Depict the operation of a jackhammer. DDDD...

Exercise No. 5 “Riders”. Sit astride the toilet seat and, opening your mouth wide, click your tongue.

Exercise No. 6 Lift the tongue up, press it to the front part of the hard palate in the area of the palatine folds. Clench your teeth, swallow saliva, fixing the position of your tongue.

Exercise No. 7 Raise the tip of the tongue up and place it at the anterior part of the hard palate. Move the tongue along the arch of the hard palate as far back as possible to the soft palate.

Exercise No. 8 Raise the tip of the tongue up and place it at the anterior part of the hard palate. Move your tongue along the palatal surface of the teeth on the right and left, touching each tooth.

How to improve your child's speech

I once wrote many articles about improving the speech of a child aged 4 years and older. And now this is really a problem for many parents. We will not discuss the reasons, mechanisms and various nuances of this topic; this article is not about that. I’ll just say that you need to try hard to improve the oral speech of preschoolers and teenagers. That's what speech therapists are for.

And at home, your task is to teach kids to pronounce all sounds, and schoolchildren to formulate their thoughts and communicate in complete sentences.

Correct pronunciation of sounds is not an easy task for many. Here articulation exercises, gymnastics, massages, songs and the development of fine motor skills of the hands will come to the rescue - this, by the way, also develops memory and attention. There are actually a lot of ways.

By the age of 5, children should be able to pronounce all sounds. Older children already need the help of a speech therapist or psychologist. You can improve the speech of a child aged 6 years and older in terms of vocabulary and expressing his thoughts only with books and communication. After all, no gadgets can replace live communication, sudden questions and their explanations, presentations of characters from fiction books and their descriptions out loud.

Breathing exercises in speech therapy

Training the articulatory organs and the development of speech breathing is one of the main points in the structure of speech correction classes with children who have defects in the pronunciation of sounds. Articulation and breathing exercises play a particularly important role in the correction of dysarthria. Speech therapists at the Yusupov Hospital consistently use various types of gymnastics. First, general motor exercises are performed, followed by breathing exercises, then vocal exercises, and only at the end articulation exercises.

Breathing exercises begin with general breathing exercises. Their goal is to increase breathing volume and normalize its rhythm. The patient is taught to breathe with his mouth closed. They train nasal exhalation by telling the baby: “Inhale deeply and exhale for a long time through the nose.” Then they practice mouth exhalation, while closing his nostrils. Exercises with resistance are used when the speech therapist places his hands on the chest, as if preventing inhalation for 1-2 seconds. They teach you to hold your breath, achieving a deep, quick inhalation and a slow, long exhalation.

Breathing exercises are performed using game techniques. “Bubbles” – use a straw and a glass of water. The speech therapist pays attention to the fact that the exhalation is long, that is, the bubbles should “come out” for a long time.

It is fashionable to use all kinds of whistles and pen caps for children's musical instruments.

“Focus” is an exercise with a piece of cotton wool that prepares you for pronouncing the sound [r]. The speech therapist places cotton wool on the tip of the nose. The patient is asked to stretch out his tongue, bend its tip up and blow on the cotton wool to blow it off the nose.

You can suggest blowing on the flame of a burning candle so as not to blow it out, but only slightly deflect the flame. You should blow carefully, slowly, for a long time. The same exercise is used when producing whistling and hissing sounds.

How to develop diction and clarity of speech with the help of training

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Speech therapy exercises.
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relationships with the opposite sex do not work out;
no career growth;
They don’t listen, they interrupt, they don’t give a chance to speak in company.

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Rules for performing exercises

It is recommended to perform a set of exercises in a good mood. The articulation is reminiscent of ordinary antics, but differs in the quality of the movements, so nothing prevents you from fooling around and having fun.
The room should be bright and well ventilated. It is advisable that no one bothers you to study.
Having a mirror will be a big plus, especially if your acquaintance with articulatory gymnastics is just beginning.
You can’t exercise immediately after eating, just like on an empty stomach. At least 1 hour must pass since the last meal.
When performing exercises, do not think about speed, it is secondary. The most important thing is pressure, muscle tension. After class you should feel tired and hot.
You should not exercise for too long; 15–20 minutes a day will be enough.

Useful tips

Articular gymnastics will be useful if you follow these recommendations:

Articulation exercises for children should be presented in a playful style. At a young age, children do not yet realize that they need gymnastics. Therefore, they will try and correctly fulfill their parents’ requests if they are interested.
You can print out colorful pictures for each lesson, so your child’s interest will increase even more.
The child cannot see his own face, so it is advisable to place a mirror in front of him.
If the baby cannot cope with the tongue exercise, he should be helped. To do this, his tongue must be directed in the desired direction using a spoon or other safe object.
While the baby is not yet accustomed to classes, the complex should contain no more than 2-3 exercises. Gradually, over time, you can add 1-2 exercises per session.

Articulation gymnastics for children should be carried out regularly. It is important to follow these rules:

Classes should be done every day. The best option is 3-4 times a day for 3-5 minutes. With a greater load, the baby will get tired.
Each exercise must be repeated at least 5 times.
If a static load is implied, you need to complete the task for 10-15 seconds.
At the beginning of the lesson, the child should be offered the simplest exercises, and then gradually move him to more complex ones.
If the student cannot completely master any of the exercises, there is no need to introduce something new into the complex. You need to wait until the baby can perform the exercises already present in the complex.
You cannot introduce more than 1 new exercise into a complex. For example, if a lesson consists of 2 exercises, then you can enter only one at a time, so that there are 3 in total, but no more.
The optimal position for performing the exercises is sitting, arms relaxed, back straight. But if the child is not comfortable sitting, you need to let him stand.
The baby should perfectly see not only his own face, but also the face of the parent. Therefore, not only he, but also an adult should be in front of the mirror.
The parent must show how to do the exercise correctly, and then monitor the correct execution.

At first, articulatory gymnastics exercises may be difficult, but over time the baby will fully master them.

Exercise for children from 7 years old

The development of articulation is associated with the constant consolidation of previous results and the mastery of new exercises. Therefore, new classes can be added to the previous program:

"Rabbit". The child should clench his teeth tightly, lifting his upper lip to open his incisors. In this position you need to freeze. You can alternate the “Smile” and “Pipe” exercises.
"Piglet." You need to stretch out your lips like a tube, like a duck, and then rotate your lips tightly together in a circle in different directions.
"Fish" The child should imitate the movements of the fish's lips. To do this, he must silently clap his lips.
"Evil horse" You need to imitate the “snorting” of a horse. To do this, you need to inhale as much air as possible and exhale it forcefully through your mouth without opening it. The lips will begin to vibrate, imitating a horse. The child should open his mouth wide and then pull his lips in as far as possible.
"Kitty." The child's tongue should represent a cat that is angry and therefore arched its back. To do this, the baby must open his mouth slightly, rest the tip of his tongue on his lower teeth so that the back of the tongue looks up.
"Tingling." You need to close your mouth tightly, tingling first one and then the other cheek with the tip of your tongue.

The goal of articulatory gymnastics is to develop correct speech. If problems are not eliminated in childhood, then this technique is also used in adulthood. Although in most cases only a doctor can help in treating defects in adults. The effectiveness of the exercises performed will be noticeable after 2-3 months of regular exercise. But at the same time, it is important that the child performs them with interest and correctly.

Basic rules of tongue gymnastics

Like any set of exercises, speech gymnastics brings results only if it is correct and regular.

To develop the articulation ability of children, you should follow the following rules:

Classes should last no more than 10 minutes, as the baby gets tired quickly. It is difficult for him to concentrate on something for a long time, so parents need to be patient and undemanding.
Let your child monitor the position of the tongue using a mirror.
Turn classes into another fun gaming activity. Do not focus on the importance of speech gymnastics, do not bore your child with boring explanations and do not force him to hold his tongue in one position for more than 10 seconds.
Choose a calm pace for your activities. You shouldn’t rush your baby, but at the same time, don’t let your child be lazy.
Make sure you perform tongue exercises accurately so that classes do not turn into meaningless antics in front of the mirror.

If exercises for the development of the speech apparatus are given to the baby with great effort, then do not be zealous, but contact a speech therapist.