I made this activity for a child who exhibits tongue thrusting when producing fricatives and stops at the conversational level. No matter how much we practice at the word and phrase level, his generalization is slim during connected speech. He is currently learning to read, and I needed an activity that would provide him a stepping stone into fluent spontaneous speech. This will kill two birds with one stone. I can informally work on reading fluency while targeting my real goal, articulation.
The link below is an activity designed to help me with this! I found a dolch list of pre-primer sight words, then I made sentences using all of the words at least once.
I printed them and then cut them into strips.
Next, I folded them up so that you couldn’t see the sentences beforehand.
Now, for ideas on what to do with this:
1. Have the child close his eyes and draw a sentence. Then he opens it and reads it. Remind him about placement of articulators before he reads the sentence. Once the sentence is read, and you’re satisfied with his production, take a turn playing a game of some sort (Battling Tops, Mr. Mouth, etc).
2. If you have the game Cariboo Island, place the sentence strips into the doors and close them up. Play the game regularly (pick a card, find it’s corresponding door, then open it with the key) and when the door is opened have the child read the sentence strip.
3. If you have the game Jenga, each time you take a turn have the child grab a sentence strip from the pile, read it, then take his turn with the Jenga blocks.
4. Have the child pick a sentence strip. He opens it and reads it one time. Time him and write down his time so that we can see it. Then, have the child read the sentence strip again and time him again. Encourage him to try and beat his score! (If working on articulation also, add a second for misarticulated sounds).
5. Print the sentences on bright colored paper. Cut them and fold them. Hide them in places around your house. Tell the child he is looking for ___ number of sentences. When he finds one, he must open it and read it, then place it in a basket. Then, he can look for the next one. Time him. Then do this task again and have him try to beat his time! Or if you have more than one child, print off multiple sheets (different colors). Tell child 1 he is looking for ___ green sentences and tell child 2 he is looking for ___ red sentences. They can race each other.
6. Draw a hopscotch board outside on the sidewalk. Put a colored dot in each square, and a colored dot on each sentence strip. When the child jumps on the square, he must freeze and yell out the color. Bring the sentence strip with the color he called out to him and have him read the sentence. He must stay in that position until he has read the sentence.
7. If working on articulation, you can highlight or underline the sounds that the child needs help with.
Other ideas? Send a comment! The comment link is under the title of this post.
You’re the best ever! Can’t wait to try it out…sounds fun.