Articulation Activities Speech Therapy Ideas

Articulation Activities Speech Therapy Ideas

by | Nov 14, 2016 | articulation, Featured #3

Trying to get those 100+ trials during articulation therapy can be challenging! Student motivation and mixed therapy groups can make it tough to get high repetitions. I wrote this blog post to introduce new articulation activities for speech therapy sessions. It’s not just your kids that need new ways to practice speech sounds; you want to have FUN too. Keep reading if you need articulation ideas that will get high reps in a session!

Articulation Activities Speech Therapy Ideas

This DIY ZAP IT game is perfect for getting high repetitions.  My students stayed motivated the entire session.  Write different numbers on popsicle sticks (make sure you put some high numbers like 10 and 15).  Then, write zap a friend, zap 1, zap 2, etc.  Stick the popsicle sticks in a bucket and have students pick a stick. If they pick a 15, they get 15 points and must say their speech sound 15 times.  The person with the most points wins the game! HERE is a rule guide that you can print and reference during therapy.
For those days when you need to get a quick drill done for everyone in your mixed groups, the articulation therapy activities I turn to are my articulation flipbooks. You will have word, carrier phrase, and sentence-level activities that you can use during direct instruction or create an articulation station for independent work. Within 5 minutes or less, my students have gotten at least 100 trials and they LOVE the dry-erase marker (Amazon affiliate link.) Try my /l/ flipbook for FREE or consider using the No Print version to pull up on your iPad or for teletherapy. 

 Keep Hands Busy During Speech Sound Production Practice

One way to keep your students motivated to practice their speech sounds is using a DIY abacus. You can help your students to visually see how many productions they got as well! Check out this blog post for more information on how to make for your students. 

Adapting Games for Articulation Practice

The Race To 100 game is a great way to get 100 productions and keep the session energy up! Put my Race to 100 game card on a plastic protective sheet or laminate.  Grab a die (make your own with a wooden block to add high numbers like 8, 10, 12, 15) and start rolling!

Grab the free articulation game printable by clicking the pink button below!

Click to get the free Race to 100 Articulation Game
You can also use the digital Race to 100 games from the digital speech folder activities to get those high trials in person or through teletherapy. When you create a digital speech folder, you can add various articulation activities for quick drills.
Find games like Uno to use during articulation therapy. Play the game as the rules intended, but whatever card the student lays down, that is how many times they have to practice their speech sound.  If the student gets a draw 4, make them practice 20 productions!  Get creative with your “speech rules” for practicing during this game.

You can use a Toss Across Game (amazon affiliate link included) to get high articulation repetitions. Use post-it notes to write numbers on the Xs and Os. When the student throws the bean bag and hits an X or O, they have to say their articulation sound that many times.

use the toss across game in speech therapy to adapt goals for students!

Articulation Therapy Crafts for High Trials

Articulation Foldable Wallet Books craftivity are a fun way to keep hands busy during the session.  Students can practice each word 5x, which makes 105 productions with this craftivity.  I love this activity because it can also be sent home for additional practice!  Try my final s-blends & l-blends wallet books for FREE. If you are looking for more high-trial articulation therapy crafts, check out this gumball craft and this paper plate paddle craft.
Sentence Strips In Speech Therapy

Sentence Strips In Speech Therapy

by | Jul 16, 2016 | Featured #3, Grammar, Language, Therapy Materials

Today, I want to share how to use sentence strips in speech therapy with your entire caseload! Have you ever worked with a student not getting the speech or language skills you were working on in speech therapy?

You frantically grab a post-it note and write a visual sentence strip related to your student’s speech or language goal. With some prompting and modeling with the sentence strip visual, your student begins seeing success with the concept. At the end of the school day, you have mini post-it notes tabbed in speech folders, on your therapy binder, or stuck to your table.

Today, I want to share how to use sentence strips in speech therapy with your entire caseload! And I Have a solution for never writing carrier phrases on post-it notes again.

Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post for your convenience. I receive a small commission when you use a link to purchase an item. 

What are sentence strips?

Not sure what is a sentence strip? This blog post will give you tips for how to use them in speech therapy.

If you are new to sentence strips, they are visual supports that provide a sentence starter to help students create a complete thought or sentence. Visual supports often give a framework for organizing thoughts and ideas. Typically, you write the beginning of the sentence visually for students and provide a dash or box to show them where to add new words. Get your free set of speech sound mats with visual strips HERE. 

Benefits of Using Sentence Strips for Speech Therapy

When your students are learning a new skill, it is cognitively overwhelming. By providing a visual sentence strip, you can remove distractions so your students can focus on the skill.

You are breaking down a big skill, so your students have a framework to approach the concept or activity. As your students grow in their automaticity with the speech or language goal, you can fade away the use of the sentence strip.

For example, when teaching a child to make inferences, there are many components to that skill. First, you have to look for clues. Then, you have access to your background knowledge. And, last, you have to apply the clues and knowledge to formulate a guess about the picture or text.

Providing a sentence starter to help your student explain their inference removes the cognitive demand to organize their thoughts. A sentence strip for an inferencing goal may be “I think the character is feeling ______ because ________.”

Why I Love Sentence Strips in Speech Therapy

I love using sentence strips to help my students have a structured way to practice their speech and language goals.

When I see a student struggling with practicing a particular skill, I can quickly provide a visual cue without taking much time from the therapy session. Here are some reasons you gotta start using these in therapy:

  • Teachers use sentence frames, so you are aligning with the classroom environment
  • ELL learners benefit from the use of sentence frames
  • These scaffolding visuals help students practice the listening and speaking common core standards
  • More repetitions with speech or language goals because you are stopping less between trials
  • Creates more independence and less verbal prompting

How to Make Visual Sentence Strips

You can write your sentences on your whiteboard, a post-it note, magnetic dry erase strips, or lined paper strips. Or, you can create them in PowerPoint or Google Slides. On apps that allow you to write, you can also digitally write them on the screen. 

But, the only drawback to using some of these methods is listed as follows:

  • You forgot what sentence starter you wrote the last session on the whiteboard
  • There aren’t visual pictures for kids who are not yet reading
  • And it’s tricky to find the visual you need when you serve a LOT of different goals
sentence-strips-speech-therapy

Have Your Visual Sentence Strips in One Spot

Because you serve a large caseload, having access to your visuals at any given moment in the session is key! If you have a lot of goals for the following treatment areas, check out the Sentence Strip Visuals for Speech and Langauge Goals Resource:

 

  • Articulation and phonology
  • Sound-loaded carrier phrase level
  • Pronouns and noun-verb agreement
  • Third person singular
  • Present, past, and future verb tense
  • Describing nouns by attributes
  • Comparing and contrasting
  • Inferencing and predicting
  • Social communication
  • Speech fluency

Not only do you get the sentence strip printables for all these skills, but you also get a no-print PDF that is linked so that you can have visuals on your computer or iPad. Switching between goals is easy!

 

And, you have 5 picture words for speech sounds so you can take progress monitoring data or use with the sentence frames.

Speech Therapy Sentence Strip Activities

If you need some ideas with how to start incorporating sentence strips, here are some ideas:

 

  • Create an I Spy sensory bin with mini trinkets and use the items with sound-loaded carrier phrases.
  • Grab your verb action photo cards or real photo vocabulary flashcards and work on describing by attributes.
  • Read any book and work on describing the characters actions using the grammar sentence strips
  • Look at real photos or wordless short videos and make inferences and predictions
  • Progress monitor speech sound goals using the carrier phrases and picture word lists
  • Pair with crafts. Students can glue or write their speech or language targets on the craft and then practice using the sentence strip
  • Incorporate the sentence strips into your play-based speech therapy sessions. 
Get tips for how to use speech therapy sentence strips in any activity!
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