Articulation Stations - Therapy Ideas to Keep Students Motivated

Raise your hand if you have students working on articulation in your therapy room! I think most SLPs can agree that we have a lot of those students either in a speech improvement program or on an IEP. It can be so tricky to help our articulation students make generalization progress when they are in a mixed group. One way to tackle those mixed groups is by planning an activity around all the goals. Or, you can set up station time for students. You can give your articulation students an independent activity to complete for 10-15 minutes while you provide direct instruction to the other kids in the group. And then, the kids switch.

If you are lucky to have a pure artic/phonology group, you can plan 5-10 minute station activities that your students can rotate through during the session. One of the stations can be working directly with you! This is when you can take data, check self-awareness, and get those high productions in the session.

Handy Tools and Items for Your Articulation Stations

Ultra Fine Dry Erase Markers – These are my MOST favorite and used dry erase markers (Amazon affiliate link) for any activity that has a page protector or that is a laminated resource. Timer – Your smartphone will do just fine, but if you want something more visual, then I recommend a Time Timer or Time Tracker (Amazon affiliate links). Clickers – For some activity stations, having a digital clicker (Amazon affiliate link) can keep kids motivated and get the higher productions that you want!

Foam Die – This is great for kids rolling the die (Amazon affiliate link) to see how many productions they have to produce. Magnetic Chips and Wand – These are great tools to help kids stay motivated to keep practicing, because they can put a chip on the picture they practiced. This lets the student know how many more are left. And, my students love picking up the chips with the magnetic wand. Mini erasers, Dinky Doodad Trinkets, dot markers, or small edibles, like Skittles, are other materials to help keep kids motivated to practice.

Teaching Behavioral Expectations and Routines

In order to be successful with stations, you have to put a heavy focus on teaching the behavioral expectations and routines. Those first couple of weeks, implementing stations will be about setting the routines. If you need more information about how to set up and teach behavioral routines, then check out this blog post HERE. That said, you may know which groups might not be ready to follow a station model due to behaviors and attention spans.

Implementing Articulation Stations in Your Therapy Room

The key to a successful articulation station is teaching the behavioral expectations and having an engaging activity. You can have the independent stations have the activities that might not get high repetitions but engage the students in thinking. Then, when the students switch to your station, you can ramp up the drill-and-kill.

Here are some therapy ideas that will help you plan effective articulation station activities:

Pipe Cleaner Articulation Station – Grab some pipe cleaners and plastic beads to have students practice their articulation words at the word, phrase, or sentence level. If you need some premade task cards for R, grab this set in my store. I also have K, G, F, V task cards.

“I Spy” Articulation Sensory Bin – You can make an “I Spy” sensory bin that can be used for articulation (it can also be used for language). Give your students an articulation mat for their sound and have them search for mini trinkets that have their speech sound. Want these mats? They are free on this blog post. Plus, all the details for how to make this interactive sensory bin are on that post.

Articulation Letter Dough Stamps – I found these Letter Dough Stamps (link?) at Lakeshore and had to have them. You can work on spelling while your students are practicing their articulation words with play dough or kinetic sand. Check out this blog post to read more about how to make this DIY therapy activity.

Articulation Centers That Will Increase Speech Productions

Articulation Challenge – Grab your timer, a clicker, and a word list to make this articulation station. Your student sets the timer for one minute and then uses the clicker to keep track of how many productions he/she can do in that time. Then, they can set the timer again and try to beat their score. If you have two students at the station, then one student can judge productions using the Self-Rating Scale from Speechy Musings (link?) or the rating scales from my Articulation Carryover Activities Set that you can download by clicking the pink button below.

Need some word lists? Here is a FREE download for /s, z, sh, ch, th/. I also have /r/ flashcards, as well as phonology flashcards in my TpT store.

Abacus Articulation Station – You can buy an Abacus (Amazon affiliate link) or make your own abacus HERE to help kids stay focused on producing their sounds. Give them a word list or picture cards and have them slide a bead across for every syllable, word, or sentence production.

Articulation Flashcard Books – have your students make their own flashcard books with this FREE template. Grab your artic decks, or give them index cards to draw or write their speech words. As they practice the cards, they can sort which ones they said correctly and which ones they need to practice again. This helps build self-awareness for correct versus incorrect sound productions.

Race to 100 Station – Print up a word list or use picture words while your students play Race to 100. Whatever the die lands on, that is how many words your student has to practice. Grab this free printable and see more pics in action HERE. Mommy Speech Therapy has FREE colored picture word lists for this station.

Click here for your FREE printable™

Articulation Flip Books – Use my articulation flip books as a station. They are designed for different levels, and students can hit a lot of productions. My students love using a dry erase marker. The flip books are predictable, so the kids stay focused and on- task. Grab these flip books HERE.

Sentence Level Articulation Stations for Therapy

Students at the sentence level can still do an articulation challenge with repetitive sentences. If you need articulation resources for the sentence level, here are some that I created:

Sentence Articulation Challenge Sheets (No Prep). Click to grab these!

No Prep Articulation Sentence Practice. Click to grab these!

Use Articulation Apps as An Articulation Station

iPad Articulation Station – If you own an iPad, or if your district gives you one, then using some interactive articulation apps as a station is a great option.

Here are some that I really like:

Articulation Station or Little Stories by Little Bee Speech

Any of the Articulation Apps by Erik Raj

Articulation Scenes by Smarty Ears

What Articulation Activities Can You Turn into a Station?

What activities do you already have prepped that you can turn into an articulation station? I would love to know any quick artic activities you use with your students. I am always looking for ways to motivate my students to practice. Share in the comments below.

Micah on 29 July, 2019 at 6:56 am
What age groups or grades do you use your articulation stations with? And how many students do you have in the group when doing stations?
- thedabblingspeechie on 29 July, 2019 at 10:16 am
  Hey Micah, using articulation stations doesn’t always work out perfectly because as you know, scheduling students can be kind of tricky. So, if I can keep students with similar artic goals, I may use this artic station format. Or if I have two artic students, and one language student, I may have 2 stations. One station with me and one independent work station with an artic or language activity that they can do on their own. I think the easiest ages are 3rd grade and up.
  Younger students K-2nd grade can learn a routine of rotating stations because many teachers do daily 5 rotations. So, it really comes down to establishing the expectations for the stations and how to behave. This can take some time and training, but in the long run could really be great for students making progress.

Articulation Stations – Therapy Ideas to Keep Students Motivated