Ideas for Using Articulation Cards in Therapy

Ohhh artic cards- we have ALL had tons of experience with these therapy tools :) I know they frequent many of my sessions and I'm always looking for new and different ways to use them.  So, I thought I'd share some ways that I use them in my therapy room.

1) Most of us SLP's use the ever popular matching and Go-Fish games to spice things up.  These options are always a good go-to and are certainly a favorite for many of my kiddos!  Good thing kids like repetition hehe ;0)

2) For students who are at the sentence level, I often give them 2-3 cards to make silly sentences with while using their sounds. "She was a soccer player and loved eating sandwiches with sand in them." The kids usually get a kick out of their sentences (or mine!) and end up having a ball.

3) For students at the structured conversation level, I like to give them several cards and have them make up a short story. Usually, they'll write the story out and then read it, focusing on their sounds. Typically, the stories contain so many target sounds- it's perfect!  Writing the stories out is also great for sending home to practice even more! Win-win.

4) For kiddos at the word level that have used the cards quite a bit and tend to know the pictures, I'll try to make it more fun by giving clues and have them guess the object.

5) Another great idea (a favorite of mine!) is to line the cards up in rows on the floor (almost like a game board in your speech room) and then choose game pieces (I like to use Little People/Animals or cars), grab a foam dice and make a game out of it!  Choose a "finish" spot and then whoever gets to the end first wins. This activity is great because it lets the students get out of their seats and move around. It also makes articulation sessions much more exciting! I can't take credit for this idea though- it came from a co-worker of mine back when I worked in private practice.

6) Little ones love to play hide-and-seek with the cards. Typically, I'll hide the cards around the room while they close their eyes and then we get to have a fun little scavenger hunt trying to find them all. Each time we find a card, we practice the word (and we may even say the word a fews times to really get some drill time in). It's even more fun to turn the lights off and use a flashlight to look for the cards!

7) I don't know about your students, but my students LOVE Ned's Head! Just throw some cards in with the other objects and have the child choose a card first, then an object for the game. Fun!

8) Feed puppets or animals.  With some of my little guys, I like to use puppets or stuffed animals and have them feed the cards to the animal.  They really seem to get a kick out of this and it makes articulation therapy much more motivating for them!

I think that's all of my ideas, or at least all I can think of at the moment :) How do you like to use articulation cards in therapy?  Comment below to share your ideas!