Distance Learning Series: Articulation
Happy Sunday! Holly Rosensweig of Spiffy Speech and I are so excited to bring you the second installment of our Distance Learning Lessons Series! This post includes tons of example lesson plans and activities that can be used for distance learning or teletherapy sessions with all school-age students. For those of you who are not doing live sessions but are still assigning work via Google Classroom or other, similar platforms, there are several resources and activities included at the end of this post for you to use. We hope these lesson plans are helpful as you navigate through this craziness - best of luck to you all and keep an eye out for the TONS of freebies sprinkled throughout this post.
First off, grab this FREEBIE visual for the articulation hierarchy! See if your students can determine which level they’re practicing on the visual, and keep them involved in taking their own data. If using Zoom, you can use the stamps tool on the whiteboard feature (share screen > whiteboard > select stamps from the toolbar up top). Have students pick two stamps - one for correct and one for incorrect - and instruct you which one to use after producing their sound (at any level). Then, they can calculate the percentage correct. You can also use the stamps tool to do something similar with a Race to 100 page (try this free spring-themed one or this free baseball one) and a virtual dice roller or spinner. You can also have students use a rating scale to judge their own productions and determine what was done well and what could be done better next time.
Syllable Level
All ages: For all sessions, it is helpful to begin with a warm up using sound webs. Using this free template, share your screen and use the annotation toolbar to create text boxes. Put the target sound in the middle (/er/ for example), and have the student give you additional sounds to fill in the outside boxes (i.e. /p, k, s, ee, ay, f/). Then, start with the target sound in the initial position and go around the circle - erp, erk, ers, eree, eray, erf. Next, put the target sound at the end - per, ker, ser, etc. and finally, have students practice the sound in the medial position - perk, pers, peree, peray, perf; kerp, kers, keree, etc.
After this warm up, check out the levels below and begin wherever the student is currently practicing. Each level is separated by activities for younger students and activities for older students. Enjoy!
Word Level
Younger students:
Use Real Objects: Collect a bag of objects (e.g., beanie babies, stuffed animals, household objects etc.) and hold them up to the screen. You could also give clues or describe the object before holding it up and see if the child can guess what it is! For example, you could say, “This object is a type of fruit. It is small and red, looks like a triangle, and has lots of seeds on the outside. What do you think it is?” If they guess ‘strawberry,’ then have the student say if the object’s name does or does not contain their sound in order to increase phonemic awareness. You could also have the child take advantage of his or her environment and go on a search for any objects around the room that contain their target sound.
Games: Additionally, you could play a game of the student’s choice, such as one of the free make/create games on ABCya (e.g., Create a Car, Make a Cupcake, Make a Robot, among many others), any PowerPoint computer games such as the ones by Spiffy Speech found here, or any Boom Card articulation games such as the fun and creative ones by Speechable Moments found here. Before each turn, have the student say a few words containing their sound(s). It may help to have an articulation word list open on your phone or iPad such as these color-coded word lists by The Speech Express or the ones found here by Home Speech Home.
Whiteboard Activities: Another fun, zero-prep word-level articulation idea is to play a modified game of Pictionary! Use the whiteboard feature on Zoom (or a separate white board website that you can open while screen sharing such as AWW board), then draw a word containing the student’s sound and have them try to guess what you’re drawing. You can also pull up a bunch of clip art pictures containing their sound (ex: scroll through “initial /k/ words articulation” in Google Images while screen sharing - just don’t forget to preview them before your session!), tell them to secretly choose a word to draw, and then YOU can try to guess the picture. Using the whiteboard, you could also play a game of hangman (shout out to @mrsmcspeechie on Instagram for that idea!). Additionally, you could draw a tic-tac-toe board and fill each square with articulation words for the student to practice before taking a turn.
Older students:
Student-Made Word Lists: Have the student name family members, cities/towns/countries, items belonging to categories, items with certain attributes, etc. that contain their sound. Create a word list with the student that contains words that are frequently used in their day-to-day lives, which is ultimately very helpful for awareness and generalization. Additionally, you can use these no-prep articulation worksheets to play a game that is similar to Scattergories! Keep track of the score and assign that many words for the student to practice for homework. Also included in that resource are scavenger hunts for articulation, which can serve as a student-made wordlist that can be completed prior to sessions and then reviewed and practiced during teletherapy! Articulation worksheets such as these can be written/typed/stamped on/checked off using the annotate feature in Zoom.
Games: To make sessions a bit more engaging, you can use the app called Word Search Maker to create a word search to play during teletherapy, or you can share your screen on your iPad and have the student create the word list for the word search. Another fun one is this Connect Four game (thanks to Detig Dialect for the idea!!) which can also be paired with a student-made word list to spice up your session - all you have to do is create a copy and save it to your Google drive. If you’d prefer to play UNO, head to this website and create a game. The room name has to be something like F1 or S2, and you can password protect the game, give your students the password, and have them login on their own devices to play with you during your session!
Phrase Level
All ages:
I Spy: Playing ‘I Spy’ is a great way for all ages to practice phrase level articulation. You can use these themed Spot It Scenes by The Speech Express to pull up and share on your screen OR if you’re using Zoom, you can set them as your virtual background!!! To set as your background, save your selected scene as a jpeg by taking a screenshot of the page. Then, open your zoom session, click the up arrow by the video camera, and select ‘virtual background’ to upload the photo. You will likely need to put up a ‘green screen’ behind you, but luckily Amazon sells green rolls of paper that won’t break the bank!! Just search ‘green paper roll’ on Amazon or click on this affiliate link. Have students search for objects with their sound using the carrier phrase, “I spy a…..” For an extra challenge, either use a carrier phrase that contains their target sound (i.e. for /R/: There’s a…; for /S/: I spot/spy/see a…; for /TH/: I see something…; etc.) or use attributes that contain their target sound to create their phrase. For example, for /r/…
Instruction: find something with your sound that is large/circular/purple/for writing/etc.
Student finds something large with their target sound and uses the phrase: “A car is large.”
Themes for the Spot It Scenes include: in the home, in the garden, transportation, sports and hobbies, animals, and a miscellaneous page. Students love them!!
Sentence Level
Younger Students:
Voice Changer: Download the free app, Voice Changer Plus. This is a must-have for artic, particularly for practice at the phrase and sentence levels. The app can be pulled up on-screen using screen mirroring software and the student can be given a sentence to repeat. (Note: If you don’t know how to display your iPad screen during Zoom or while using another teletherapy platform, visit our teletherapy tutorial for instructions.) You can record the student’s spoken sentences using Voice Changer Plus and then allow the student to choose which funny/weird version of their voice they want to hear (ex: Darth Vader, a slow voice like a turtle). This is such a simple activity but kids love it and you can get so many phrase or sentence level productions!
Sounds That Stick: There are SO many sentence-level articulation activities that can be found within this huge Sounds That Stick speech sound generalization resource by Spiffy Speech that are ideal for use in teletherapy. Younger students can create an Articulation Alien by drawing body parts, clothing items, and accessories onto the alien body. Using the annotate tool in a teletherapy platform that supports it such as Zoom, the student can draw directly on top of the alien body right on-screen. Students can also use sentences to describe the differences between sound-loaded Spot the Difference scenes. For older students, the activity can be made more challenging by having them study only one picture scene at a time and then having to remember that picture when presented with the second one in order to identify the differences!
Older Students:
Use Photos: These Spring-Themed Teletherapy cards provide targets for creating several different sentences about a picture. There are prompts for declarative, imperative, exclamatory, interrogative sentences, as well as using a given noun/adjective/verb/preposition in a sentence, or completing and using similes or idioms in a sentence. Check out this free sample card here! Additionally, these Create-A-Caption Cards tie articulation into social media in an engaging way for students - they must take a variety of perspectives to create captions and hashtags for social media posts using different conjunctions or synonyms.
Telling Jokes: Find some jokes for students to practice sentence level articulation! You can also have students search for jokes to share for homework, and the practice them during your session! See the section for independent work at the bottom of this post for more resources on using jokes for articulation.
Tongue Twisters: The Articulation Tongue Twisters activity from this Sounds That Stick generalization resource provides a word bank containing tons of words with the student’s target sound, all of which can be used to generate their own sound-loaded tongue twisters. Besides being fun, practicing tongue twisters has the added bonus of challenging the student to speed up their productions. Plus, it’s great for generalization too!
Reading Level
Younger Students
Picture Books: Allow the student to read from a picture book such as those found on Epic, which has a free trial, or from any easy picture book of their choice.
Older Students
Poems: To practice sounds at the reading level, students can read a Shel Silverstein Poem! ‘Invitation’ is loaded with /r/ sounds; ‘Falling Up’ is great for practice with /s/; and ‘The Scientist and the Hippopotamus’ has several /th/ words. Additionally, ‘The Homework Machine’ can be read for practice with /r/, /th/, or /ch/. This website has quite a few, but a quick google search for Shel Silverstein poems will give you loads more!
Song Lyrics: Another fun activity to incorporate into your live sessions is for students to read the lyrics to a favorite song! This website has lyrics to just about every song out there, and reading song lyrics is a great way to promote generalization! Because who knows…they just may get some extra practice in while belting out the songs into their hairbrushes during a quarantine jam session! ;)
Passages: For more challenging passages, students can read a short story, paragraph, or article on a topic of their choice (ex: cars, sports, animals, etc.). Several popular topics (sports, music, planet Earth, etc.) can be found in these themed mini-units, which can also be used to address higher-level language and vocabulary goals! Themed word lists are also included with each mini unit. Additionally, free Marvel comics can be found here at Marvel HQ.
Structured Conversation Level
Younger Students
Creating Stories: Many of the ideas and activities found in the Sounds That Stick generalization resource were designed for structured conversation practice with students of all ages. Younger students can use their sounds to create a story about an Articulation Alien picture that they’ve drawn, which includes body parts, accessories, etc. with their target sound. They can also use the ‘My Sound Story’ activity from the Sounds That Stick resource to generate a story that contains their target sound(s) and an illustration, then describe the illustration using their sounds. Another option is to describe pictures from books, such as those found on Epic or the funny, animated scenes in the Wanderful Storybook apps. Additionally, while watching a motivating video - such as Simon’s Cat, an episode of a favorite show (e.g., PJ Masks, Paw Patrol), or other animated short videos on YouTube - you can pause the video periodically so that it becomes a picture scene for the student to describe.
Older Students
Truth or Myth?: To practice sounds in conversation, older students can be given a list of fun or weird facts to guess whether they are real or not. Then, they can explain their answers using their target sound(s). This Truth or Myth activity is a HUGE hit with older students working on articulation and higher-level language skills, as students are often shocked when they learn which of the facts are actually true!! This digital resource includes one page with a statement (i.e. Toe wrestling is a real, competitive sport/An octopus has three hearts/It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky) and students must guess whether its a truth or a myth. This is also great for students working on sentence level and reading level articulation, as there are short passages that give the answer and explain the information on the following page. Students can also practice making inferences and predictions, describing, comparing and contrasting, and so much more! This is such an engaging activity for all ages and will have students asking to do it each session! You can try a free sample card here!
Use a Video or Picture: Students can watch YouTube videos such as Ellen’s Epic or Fail videos, or even trailers for video games or movies. Have the student make predictions (e.g., whether the feat will be epic or a failure and why) or write a review that retells the events and describes whether or not they would recommend it to a friend, how many stars they would give it, etc. Additionally, using these fantasy scenes by Spiffy Speech (or other images), students can make up narratives and tell them using their sounds. Some older students may even like telling their own “fandom” story using characters from a favorite movie (e.g., Harry Potter, Star Wars, Avengers).
Have a Conversation: Use a set of conversational topic cards such as the set of 160+ topic cards found here (and also included within the Sounds That Stick binder) to give conversational prompts such as telling steps in procedures, coming up with arguments in a debate, and answering “Would You Prefer…?” questions. The game Would You Rather, which is also available as an app, is great for practicing artic sounds at the conversation level with older (and younger) students! You could also have a discussion about what the student wants to do after graduating high school, and what he or she will need to do in order to make that happen. Involve your students in taking data on their own productions during conversation, and let them know the percentage correct they need in order to reach their goal.
Activities for Independent Completion by Students
Articulation Hunt for Movies/TV: share this FREE page with students and have them watch a TV show, YouTube video, or movie. While watching, students should search for objects containing their sound, make a list, and practice those words. If students are working on the conversation level, have them create a review of what they’ve watched
Articulation Scavenger Hunts and Categories Games: This resource by The Speech Express is full of scavenger hunts that can be completed around the house. It also includes pages that are similar to Scattergories, in which the student must come up with a word containing their sound that fits multiple categories. This can be played as a game with other family members! There are several variations of each worksheet for students who are working on more than one sound.
Make a Joke Book: Make an editable google document for each sound that all students can edit. Have students edit the document to add 2-3 jokes with their sound in them. The following week, once all students have added their jokes, they can choose 4-5 jokes from the “joke book” and practice telling them to different family members. Both Home Speech Home and Red Tricycle have a page with tons of jokes that are student-friendly.
Caption a Photo: Have students select one of their own photos, share one of your photos, or use this Create-A-Caption resource by The Speech Express for students to write a sentence about the photo using as many words with their sound as possible. For an extra challenge, ask students to either create a caption from multiple perspectives, use a specified conjunction (i.e. although, because, if, etc.), or use a synonym for common words (i.e. big, pretty, fun, etc.).
Games on Quia: Quia.com has TONS of free games that can be assigned as articulation homework! You can either make your own games or use one of the many pre-made games - just search under the speech and language category. The games include Jeopardy, Battleship, Memory, Word Searches, Concentration, and more. Check out this /r/ articulation battleship that has words, phrases, and sentences, or this other /er/ articulation battleship that asks students to come up with synonyms for words that end in /er/ - students can select a level (easy, medium hard) and play against the computer. Once a ship is hit, a question or prompt will pop up for students to practice their skills.
Make a Word Search: Students can download this app or go to this website to create their own word search! Have students create their own word list and enter it into a word search maker. As each word is found, they can either write it in a sentence or practice it 3x.
Conversations with Family Members: provide families with a list of conversation topics or ‘Would You Rather’ questions to discuss during dinner. Have the child take data on their sound while discussing this topic and see what percentage they can achieve.
Well - that’s it for now! We hope that these activities are helpful to you as you continue to plan your sessions amidst a national pandemic. Remember, you’re doing amazing and your students are so lucky to have you! Also, don’t forget to grab all the freebies included in this post and check back for updates in the coming weeks.
All the best!
Lucy and Holly
