Speech problem... plural and singular nouns sound alike

[Omma]

We were doing our Rod and Staff English lesson this morning on singular vs. plural nouns, and I just realized that my son says the words, 'key' and 'keys' almost exactly alike. How can I help him? I am wondering if I will be able to help him myself, or if I should get him some kind of speech therapy. He also says 'woruld' instead of 'world' and 'girul' instead of 'girl'.

He has been studying Korean, so that is maybe part of the problem, as Koreans have trouble with 'r' and 'l' in English. But the other problem is that he had to have 4 of his upper teeth pulled last May, and 2 of them finally came in just this month.

Right now he is practicing them out loud, so at least he is now aware of the problem and is trying to correct himself. He will be 9 in March, BTW!

Thanks for your help!

Brenda

[Macrina]

Has it always been a problem or just noticed it?

I would keep a list of the discrepancies and think about mouth position and tongue position between the two and emphasize that to him. KEY does something very different with the tongue then KEYS and teeth shouldn't affect a word like that. I am no SLP but dd and ds are both in threapy so I have BTDT!