This simple game can be a powerful tool in speech therapy
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Years ago, I had a student who was substituting /th/ for /s/, a common speech sound error in kids. This little guy had been difficult to motivate in our sessions and was not terribly interested in trying to learn this new speech sound. But his teacher had shared that he was frequently misspelling words in the classroom because of this speech sound error. In addition, this boy's parents really wanted him to correct it.
The solution I came up with at that moment has proven to be an invaluable tool that I have used again and again over the years: We played Go Fish! And mere seconds into the game, this student was highly motivated to produce /s/. The switch had been flipped.
Let me explain.
Go Fish! is a simple game; kids can play it starting at about the age of 3-4 (with some help). The cards you use when playing this game can have anything on them as long as there are matching pairs.
The skill on our part as SLPs comes in choosing what will be on the cards.
If you've read my post on contrastive intervention approaches, you'll know that minimal pairs can be used to "spark phonological learning." When a child has the insight that they're saying a completely different word because of this speech sound error, their target speech sound becomes much more meaningful to them.
We can use an example from a session I just had this past week. I have a student who is substituting /f/ and /t/ for /th/. These are some examples of the errors he makes:
math --> maf
both --> bofe
three --> tree
thanks --> tanks
That tells me that his phonological awareness for /th/, /f/, and /t/ - both his ability to discern these sounds and to understand their importance as distinct entities is limited right now.
After some initial work verifying that /th/ was stimulable for him (meaning he could produce it at the word level in structured modeling and drill activities), as well as some work encouraging him to discern correct productions of /th/ using the SAILS app, I knew he was ready to play Go Fish!
I generated a list of good minimal pairs for him (tanks/thanks, three/tree, fin/thin, both/boat, etc.) There's an art to this; it's not always easy to find minimal pairs with real words where both words are developmentally appropriate. I used my list to do a Google image search (I often use the prompt "clip art (name of desired image)" to find images that are kid-friendly.) I then printed them out, glued them onto construction paper, and laminated them. I'll be honest here: It takes some time to make cards like this, but it's mindless work and can easily be done in front of the television!
This website has lots of minimal pairs, which can make the process faster. (It's an Australian website so SLPs in other countries should be mindful that the pairs still rhyme in their dialect.)
First, I reviewed all the cards with my student, ensuring he knew their labels.
We were ready to play Go Fish!
Consistent with what usually happens when I first play this speech therapy game with students, this student asked for "thanks" but produced it as "tanks." Fortunately, I had "tanks" in my hand (sometimes it takes a while for this occasion to arise), and I handed it to him. He took it, confused. He told me he had asked for "thanks" but, again, produced it as "tanks." I then summoned my best acting skills to also seem confused, stating, "That's what I gave you - tanks....... Oooooh wait a minute! Did you mean THANKS? You said TANKS so I gave you TANKS! If you said TTTHHHANKS, I would have understood which card you wanted!"
In that moment, my student got that phonological spark: the realization that the weird new sound we've been practicing lately during our sessions can really affect the meaning of what he says. For the remainder of the game, he did a tremendous job articulating /th/ correctly.
And, as an SLP-cherry on top, this student then counted up his matches, correctly and spontaneously producing the /th/ in "three."
As we all know, activities can be hit-or-miss in speech-language therapy. This one has consistently been a hit. Let me know if you try it!
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Have you heard? StoryWhys now offers the Speech and Spell series of resources. I am always trying to tie articulation work and spelling together in my therapy and I've never found any good resources out there to help me do this. So I made my own! Many more speech sounds and spelling rules to come. They'll be 50% off for 48 hrs when new resources are added to the StoryWhys store. Find them here.
Did you know book companions can be among the best speech therapy materials for elementary students? Explore all of the StoryWhys book companions for speech therapy in my store. You'll find comprehensive book companions that target many different language skills or Spotlight Series book companions that focus on one type of skill, all using high-quality, beloved storybooks.
And get your FREE, 71-page book companion for speech therapy on the free downloads page.
Enjoy!
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