When working with students in mixed groups, it’s great to pull out games for speech therapy sessions. We often use board games as a reinforcer for practicing a goal. You know the typical way of rolling the die, practicing their goal, moving their game piece, and then letting the next student take their turn. Sound familiar? That can be super effective for practicing speech and language skills, but what if we could use board games as speech therapy tools? Today, I will share how to use the Zingo game for speech therapy goals. With these easy suggestions, you can turn the game into a Zingo speech therapy activity.
Where to Find the Zingo Game
If your students love playing BINGO, they will love the twist of the Zingo game. I found this game at a thrift store, but if you want to avoid hunting around for it, grab it on Amazon (an affiliate link is included for your convenience.) In case you didn’t know, ThinkFun has an expansion pack with new words and cards.
Using the Zingo 1-2-3 game would be super easy for your students with speech sound goals to get those high trials. Every time your student matches a number on their board, that’s how many times they have to practice their target speech sound. For more high-trial therapy ideas, head to this blog post.
To help you adapt the game for receptive and expressive language goals and articulation and phonology goals, use the two-page toy companion cheat sheet with the game! It helps save brain energy as you navigate mixed groups with this speech therapy game.
Zingo Speech Therapy Practice for Z words
It’s a no-brainer that this game has a lot of embedded practice for z words, just with the title alone.
Whenever students find a tile, they can say, “I got a zinger.” or “I can’t wait to yell Zingo!”
You can put the Zingo tiles on the table for a play-based speech therapy activity and have students zoom their cars past the items. They can say “I zoomed past the dog.” Or, you can have a magician zap the tiles to disappear!
You can also create sound-loaded carrier phrases and use the Zingo tiles as the fill-in-the-blank item.
For example, if your student works on r-blends, you can write a sound-loaded sentence such as “Grayson grabs a/an ______.” Use the Zingo tiles to fill in what Grayson grabs.
Use these done for your sound-loaded sentence strips in my TPT store to save you time!
Rock Chalk Speech Talk shares so great ways to use this game for other sounds and apraxia goals. Check it out HERE.
Ideas for Mixed Groups Articulation and Language
Frequently we have mixed groups with articulation and language goals. Here are some ideas for using this game with those types of goals.
Work on yes/no questions for the tiles. For your speech sound students ask them if the object has their speech sound. Use the free yes/no visuals from the Ultimate Articulation Carryover Guide.
Grab your figurines toys sets like these Little People community helpers and put them on your mats, covering the object. Then, you can ask “who” and “what” questions such as “Who has the duck?” After they find their item, have students describe the item by attributes. You can use this describing poster from the articulation game for describing words. Have younger students look under the figurines to see what they find. You can target CORE words for look, see, under, and what, or build simple sentence structures for “I see _____.”
Teaching Tier II Vocabulary With the Zingo Speech Therapy Game
Before playing the Zingo game, teach your students some tier II vocabulary words that can be relatable to the game.=
For example, the word reveal means to uncover or to show what is hidden.
With the Zingo game, the game tiles are hidden. When you slide the game handle, it reveals which two tiles are next in the game.
First, have your students complete a personal dictionary sheet with the word reveal. Then, tell them while we play Zingo, we will practice using “reveal” in sentences while playing the game.
Because there is a personal connection to the tier II vocabulary word, students will better understand how to use the word. If you need personal dictionary sheets, these are available in the Themed Therapy SLP membership in the bonus section.
For more tier II vocabulary words to use with the game, reference the Zingo toy companion cheat sheet.
How do you use the Zingo Game in Speech Therapy?
Isn’t it the best when you have many ideas for using one speech therapy game? When we can adapt one board game to cover speech and language goals, it makes planning therapy easier. So, it’s your turn. How do you use the Zingo game with your students? Share your ideas or tips to make this game functional for speech and language goals! Make sure to tag me @thedabblingspeechie if you use Zingo in speech therapy!
To learn about more speech therapy games, head to this blog post.
