rhyming words for speech therapy

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Speech is Beautiful

Enhance Phonological Awareness with Rhyming Words

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Identifying rhyming words plays a crucial role in the development of language skills. This phonological awareness skill helps children recognize and understand the sound patterns in language. By identifying rhymes, children become more attuned to the sounds and structures of words, which in turn strengthens their ability to decode and recognize new words when reading. Rhyming also helps children develop an understanding of word families and phonics, as they discover that words with similar sounds often share letter patterns. Rhyming words also add a playful and engaging element to reading and language development activities, making them more enjoyable and motivating for your students. Ultimately, mastering the skill of identifying rhyming words lays a solid foundation for successful reading comprehension, fluency, and language development.

The Benefits of Rhyming Activities

To build language skills, reading comprehension, and fluency, I have created an engaging resource for teachers, special education educators, and Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) to use with their students. The resource, Rhyming Words Mega Pack , contains 27 pages of color and black and white task cards. The black and white cards are the perfect print-and-go option for homework or at-home practice while the colored task cards make a great in-class option. To use the colored cards, I highly suggest printing them on card stock and laminating them for reuse. 

My Rhyming Words Mega Pack offers a diverse range of stimuli to help children strengthen their rhyming skills. The pack includes various sets of task cards with different word combinations, ensuring a comprehensive learning experience. Additionally, the pack introduces (or extends) the concept of “foils” to challenge learners and deepen their understanding of rhyming words. These foils consist of words that may have similar sounds but do not actually rhyme. By including these foils, the pack encourages children to discern the subtle differences between words and sharpen their rhyming perception skills.

Ongoing Fun: Rhyming Word Pictures!

The best part about this resource? It offers ongoing benefits! The colored task cards (after printing and laminating) can be used year after year with your students! These cards are also a great addition to a variety of rhyming games and activities! The following games and activities can easily be incorporated into your sessions through the use of these task cards:

• Matching Game : Use the task card pairs, shuffle them and lay them face-down on a table. Players take turns flipping two cards, trying to make a match of rhyming words. The player with the most matches wins.
• Rhyme Relay: Divide players into teams. Give each team a set of task cards. One player from each team races to pick a card, read the word aloud, and find a rhyming word from another card in the set. Once they’ve found a match, they tag the next player on their team, who repeats the process. The team that finishes first with the most rhyming word pairs wins.
• Rhyme Charades : Have players draw a task card and act out the word without speaking. The other players must guess the word and then come up with a rhyming word. This game encourages creativity and quick thinking.
• Rhyme Bingo : Create bingo boards with rhyming words. Use the task cards as the calling cards, reading out the words and players marking the corresponding rhyming word on their board. The first player to get a line or a full board of rhyming words calls out “Rhyme Bingo!”

Using this resource is a great way to practice the phonological awareness skill of rhyming. As I explained above, this set of task cards can be used in a variety of ways (games, activities, flashcards, and more), you may be looking for even more ways to rhyme. The following resources are the perfect addition to your classroom toolkits! 

• Rhyming Words Mega Pack 2 (BOOM Card Version)
• Rhyming Words Mega Pack 2 (No Print PDF Version)
• Rhyming Words Mega Pack 2 (Printable Task Cards Version)

Take the step towards improving your student’s rhyming skills by purchasing the Rhyming Words Mega Pack today. With this comprehensive resource at your disposal, you’ll be equipping your students to develop essential phonological awareness skills. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to make learning rhyming words engaging and effective. Visit my TpT Store to get your hands on this invaluable resource and start unlocking the potential for improved reading skills. Let the journey to mastering rhyming commence!

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Home » Help Your Child Learn to Read: Phonological Awareness Games for Preschoolers- Rhyming

Help Your Child Learn to Read: Phonological Awareness Games for Preschoolers- Rhyming

In my previous blog post, Phonological Awareness Skills All Kids Need to Learn, I walked you guys through what Phonological Awareness is, why these skills are vitally important to the development of reading in children, and the five areas of Phonological Awareness that are vital to reading success. As a refresher, these skills include Rhyming, Segmentation, Blending, Isolation, Deletion, and Substitution. In today’s blog post, we will dive a little deeper into specific games/materials you can utilize at home to aid in your child’s development of Rhyming. My hope is that you can take these activities and incorporate them into your daily routine at home in a fun and exciting way!

Rhyming: When working on rhyming skills with your child, you will want to target both identifying and producing rhyming words. A great way to target rhyming is utilizing what are called “word families”. For example, the “-an” word family includes the following words: ran, man, fan, van, pan, ban, can, tan, Dan, Jan. An amazing product we frequently use in our office for rhyming is the “What’s the Rhyme Sorting Houses”. In this game, each house has a different word family (i.e. “-at”, “-ug”, “-ing”, etc), and you can sort all of the rhyming words into the houses as you play. There are also a variety of free word family/rhyming worksheets online, where you can play matching and sorting games, in order to strengthen your child’s ability to identify and match the rhyming words (i.e. “Do mat and mug rhyme?”, “Do rock and lock rhyme?). Another great way to introduce the concept of rhyming words is through book reading. Reading books to your child and pointing out the rhyming words/having them fill them in after a few reads, is a fun and easy way to target this skill when you are short on time!

Once your child is consistently able to identify and match rhyming words, next you can move on to producing rhyming words. For rhyme production, you can use some of the same games as above to work on producing their own rhyming words. Instead of using the houses as a sorting game to identify if the words rhyme, take a house and have them come up with the rhyming words for each house (either with the use of visual pictures or without, depending on their level). You can also utilize other games, such as rhyming puzzles, to target this skill too. Rhyming puzzles are great to use for rhyme production, because they often only work with the correct “rhyming word” and not the other words in the box. There are also a plethora of other rhyming activities (free and paid) online at your disposal (websites I frequently use are Teachers Pay Teachers, Boom Learning, and The Reading Mama).

Below are just a few rhyming activities that you can utilize at home. Some are free and others are available for purchase online:

What’s the Rhyme Sorting Houses:

• https://www.lakeshorelearning.com/products/ca/p/JJ157/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=performancemax&gclid=CjwKCAjwyY6pBhA9EiwAMzmfwUmt8EnqdV5iVvbx42vbOS6ckotKgcF99lKHWks4J4-Aq7SwKL8lARoCP8UQAvD_BwE

Word Families/Rhyming Worksheets (free downloads):

• https://thisreadingmama.com/print-play-word-family-games/
• https://thisreadingmama.com/short-vowel-word-family-cards/
• https://thisreadingmama.com/free-rhyme-time-pack-updated-expanded/
• https://thisreadingmama.com/listening-for-rhymes-clip-cards/

Rhyming Puzzles:

• https://www.amazon.com/eeBoo-Preschool-Rhyming-Puzzle-Toddlers/dp/B07XFFN87P/ref=asc_df_B07XFFN87P/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=416650638624&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=775027202637333565&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9010941&hvtargid=pla-885605396302&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=93457065989&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=416650638624&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=775027202637333565&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9010941&hvtargid=pla-885605396302
• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NNQU6W/ref=vp_d_vp_d_fuw_pd_pd?_encoding=UTF8&pf_rd_p=f20fcda8-2440-4bfe-9c09-83295cb4a15a&pf_rd_r=44NRWE5V683C95VAT8YT&pd_rd_wg=ztYxG&pd_rd_i=B000NNQU6W&pd_rd_w=KuHEl&content-id=amzn1.sym.f20fcda8-2440-4bfe-9c09-83295cb4a15a&pd_rd_r=6a131489-f107-423f-8102-f34367aeeabb&th=1

Rhyming Puzzle (free download): https://www.123homeschool4me.com/rhyming-words-activity/

Rhyming Books:

• McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash
• Green Eggs and Ham
• Goodnight Moon
• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
• The Fleas Sneeze
• A Frog in the Bog

I sincerely hope that this blog post, Help Your Child Learn to Read: P honological Awareness Games for Preschoolers-Rhyming , is a resource that you can come back to again and again as your child’s development continues! Stay tuned in future months for follow up blog posts (from me), which will continue to provide even more Phonological Awareness Games in the remaining areas: Segmenting/Blending, Isolation and Deletion/Substitution.

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Parent's Academy › Activities for Kids › Music for Kids › Rhymes and Their Benefits for Speech

Rhymes and Their Benefits for Speech

Stacie bennett.

Speech-Language Pathologist , Trenton , New Jersey

Jan 15, 2022 How to teach rhymes to little kids? How rhymes can help develop language? Games or activities to teach rhymes?

One of my favorite children’s authors, Dr. Seuss wrote, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. ” It wasn’t simply his words and wisdom that were important, it was also the rhyme. 

Singing, rhyming and storytelling are a part of every culture. By doing this, parents not only keep traditions alive, but they teach their children how to say words, practice pitch, volume, and the rhythm of their native language. Rhymes for kids also help develop the listening and comprehension skills necessary for brain development and memory .

Experts in literacy and child development have discovered that if children know eight nursery rhymes by heart by the time they’re four-years-old, they’re usually among the best readers by the time they’re eight. Reading Magic, Mem Fox (2001)

Listening to music and singing along to rhymes for kids helps develop:

• an awareness of different emotions and feelings,
• speech by repetition of words,
• hand-eye coordination by getting a good sense of beat from music,
• memory skills by singing favorite songs regularly,
• an understanding of concepts such as night, day, under, over, animals, rain, stairs, etc., and
• timing skills which help him to kick moving balls, and throw and catch things.

Activities for Newborns

Babies respond well to your voice and movement, and similar sounds and same consonants. I know both of my children were much calmer if they were moving around in my arms. These songs can all be used with toddlers, as well.

Hickory Dickory Dock

Hickory dickory dock, (Touch your baby’s toes, knees, hips) The mouse ran up the clock. (Tickle up his body) The clock struck one, (Touch his nose) The mouse ran down, (Tickle down his body) Hickory dickory dock. (Touch his toes, knees and hips)

Incy, Wincy Spider (Itsy Bitsy Spider)

Incy, Wincy spider Climbed up the waterspout. Down came the rain And washed poor Incy out. Out came the sun And dried up all the rain And Incy, Wincy spider Went up the waterspout again.

Use your hand to be the spider that climbs up your child’s body, tummy or arm. Your child might like to be the spider and use her fingers to ‘climb’ up your arm!

Round and Round the Garden

Round and round the garden, went the teddy bear. One step, two steps, Tickle under there.

(Walk your fingers around your child’s palm. Take steps with your fingers up their arm, and then tickle their armpit or chin. Also works with feet!)

Activities for Toddlers

It’s Raining, It’s Pouring

It’s raining, it’s pouring, (Wiggle fingers, move arms downwards like rain) The old man is snoring. He bumped his head On the side of the bed And couldn’t get up in the morning.

Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes. Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.

And eyes and ears and mouth and nose, Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.

Try singing this using different body parts e.g. head, tummy, hips and thighs, hips and thighs. This really helps children learn the names for the parts of their body, and they produce a rhyming word(s).

Boost Your Child’s Speech Development!

Improve language & communication skills with fun learning!

Rhyming is an important pre-reading skill that can benefit your child later on. The ability to rhyme occurs in three unique stages.

If you want to help your child learn how to rhyme, use books, games, and engaging activities that promote rhyming ability. There are tons of books that can help with rhyme schemes, and rhyming lyrics and poems; just put a simple search into google or amazon. Like Dr. Seuss or Sandra Boynton, my favorites are anything that teach the alphabet along with rhymes.

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The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not necessarily reflect the views of Blub Blub Inc. All content provided on this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for independent professional medical judgement, advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.

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Using Rhymes and Fingerplay to Increase Language Skills

Using fingerplays, rhymes and chants in speech therapy are a great way to target specific language and motor skills that young students with language impairments may be missing.

These activities are great for building vocabulary as children learn language , learning the sounds of words, and hearing the rhythm of language. Fingerplays also help children develop attention skills, imagination skills, gain large and small motor skills, and work on memory and social skills.

This type of quick lesson is also a great way to signal transitions like time to move from the carpet to the table, time to begin or time to leave.

I recently started a new routine in my group of 3 year old students with language impairments. We started with the finger family song. I used this video by The Learning Station to initially teach the song. We only used it once because staring at the screen wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted to see reciprocal interaction, eyes on me or their own fingers, imagining they had an entire family on their one little hand.

If you think your little students are past this communication milestone, I challenge you to try targeting it specifically. Chances are, you will be surprised at the first attempt. Some of my students had no idea that they could individually point their fingers in a specific order. Putting their one hand behind their back and pulling it out to reveal another family of fingers…mindblowing!

As Christmas came around, we changed the characters on our hands to Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, little elf, reindeer, and snowman.

I wasn’t sure this was working the way I had planned until a parent contacted me by email and said, “We love the Daddy Finger Song that you have taught…” The one parent who contacted me was the last one I expected based on their son’s initial exposure and response to music in my classroom. He had now learned a new song, with motions, retained the vocabulary over the course of days and weeks and taught it to his parents!

This encouraged me to continue this new routine turned “tradition” in my speech room. My students NEVER let me forget our song before we leave.

We know that while learning language, enactment helps memory by creating a more complex representation of the word, making it more easily retrieved.

To learn a new word, students need multiple opportunities and representations of those words to learn and apply them to a song. This song for January teachers part/whole relationships, body part vocabulary, winter clothing, sequencing, action words, size concepts and more!

This free download contains key vocabulary with pictures and text in 2 inch cards. Use them to visually represent phrases and sentences as students practice combining words verbally. Place them in a small bin of cotton balls and let students pull them out and name what they see. Ask WH questions about the pictures. If they pull out the hat ask, “Where does the hat go?” When the BIG or ROUND card is pulled out have the students name things that are included in that descriptive category.

These images also pair nicely with the book Sneezy the Snowman . I read it aloud to my preschoolers and used the visual for “melt” and “build” throughout to help them predict what happens to Sneezy.

By communicating what we are doing in the speech room with our parents who then review the activities and vocabulary, the likelihood of student mastery of skills increases. “Parent-Implemented Intervention” can take many forms but has been proven successful. A parent letter is included  in this download to send home with a copy of the snowman poem for parents to work on the same vocabulary and concepts targeted in speech therapy.

Nursery rhymes and fingerplays have been around for many years. Evolving cultural roles and family dynamics have influenced the passing of these traditions on to more recent generations . Since children are not learning them in the home, it is our responsibility to introduce them to students in our classroom as well as train the parents how to use them in everyday activities in the home.

I hope you are now encouraged to incorporate more rhymes and fingerplays into your speech room, your classroom or your home. Please enjoy this download by incorporating it into your winter themed lessons with language impaired students. I would love to see how you use the included printables in your classroom.

Feel free to tag me on IG so I can see your creativity!

If you are using specific songs in your speech room that you would like me to know about, please let me know in the comments below or by email.

Looking for snowman-themed toys for speech? Felice Clark, The Dabbling Speechie has a great list of toys and games! Check out her post…

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Find the Rhyming Picture

• January 2, 2013
• Activity Type , Interactive , Language , Materials , Reading , Rhyming , Worksheets

For students working on basic rhyming skills, these pages are a great place to start. The students name the first picture and then choose which one of the other three pictures rhymes with it. For the interactive version, they can drag the rhyming picture next to the picture in the box above it.

There are interactive, black and white and color versions available.

Interactive Material: This material includes an interactive version that can be used in teletherapy. The file can be uploaded to Google Slides or opened in PowerPoint and then shared with the student. In order for the drag-and-drop pieces to work, make sure you are NOT in presentation mode. If you are using PowerPoint, you’ll need to enable editing.

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How to Write Phonological Awareness Goals [with goal bank]

Phonological awareness skills are essential for learning how to read. Intervention may be warranted if a child does not meet age-appropriate standards for literacy-related skill areas. This article discusses how to use our formula to write phonological awareness goals (with goal bank)!

Our comprehensive goal banks for school-aged language, AAC, Early Intervention & preschool, and fluency are available on our site or Teachers Pay Teachers store !

Save time creating goals with over THOUSANDS of possible goal combinations. Select your own combination of DO + CONDITION + CRITERION (and consistency) statements to develop personalized and measurable goals for your caseload.

Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is the ability to detect and manipulate sounds and syllables in words. It is critical for the foundation of a child's literacy development (aka - learning how to read and write). It is one of the milestones required for emergent literacy skills, in addition to print concepts (e.g., understanding which way to hold a book or the correct direction to read text) , alphabet knowledge (i.e., understanding of letter names and their shapes) , and literate language (i.e., understanding how to compose language elements for adequate communication).

Basically, phonological awareness is the awareness that words can be broken down into smaller units, such as syllables , onset-rime units , and phonemes.

For more information about these units, check out our recent article, What is Phonological Awareness ?

Phonological Awareness Skills

There are various skills that can be targeted in speech and language therapy to improve phonological awareness. Speech-language pathologists help individuals develop skills within the five domains of language , including phonology. Phonological awareness is part of understanding and using phonemes correctly.  These skills are initially taught within the general education curriculum and increase in complexity with each subsequent grade level. It is important that a child achieves foundational phonological awareness skills so that they are on the trajectory to be literate and academically successful as they get older. Encouraging and providing exposure to these forms of phonological awareness skills (at school/home, in therapy, etc.) are important for increasing literacy development. Individuals may need targeted intervention to develop these skills if they do not master them when exposed to the general education curriculum. According to Roseberry-McKibbin & Hegde (2016), skills include:

Rhyming : identification of words that sound alike ( car - star )

Syllable awareness : knowledge of how many syllables are in a word

Phoneme isolation : identifying whether the sound is at the start, middle, or end of a word

Sound blending : blending two or more sounds together, temporarily separated by a few seconds (e.g., “ c - a - t --- what animal is that?”)

Writing Phonological Awareness Goals

If you haven’t already, check out our recent article that outlines How to Write Speech Therapy Goals . For the purpose of this article, we will focus specifically on writing goals for increasing phonological awareness skills during therapy.

As seen above, speech goals should be written with 3* components in mind: the DO statement , the CONDITION statement , and the CRITERION statement .

*Also commonly included is consistency (we incorporate this!). Aka: does the individual have to meet a specific criterion more than once? A common example of this may include across 3 consecutive sessions. This is usually something understood by the therapy organization/service provider and is sometimes/sometimes not included in the written goal itself. Including consistency statements ensure that the skill has been generalized and provides more reliable data that the skill has been properly mastered.

DO statement

What the client is actually going to DO and the specific skill they will be working towards.

Example: will identify each syllable within multi-syllabic words

CONDITION statement

The specific setting and/or context your client will work on this skill.

Example: during structured drill tasks

CRITERION statement

How the client’s performance will be measured.

Example: with 80% accuracy

DO + CONDITION + CRITERION

Example: [Client] will identify each syllable within multi-syllabic words, during structured drill tasks, with 80% accuracy

There you have it! An example using our Goal Writing Formula containing the DO + CONDITION + CRITERION (don’t forget to think about consistency!) for increasing phonological awareness skill areas.

Phonological Awareness Goal Bank

Example #1: [ Client] will circle the two words that rhyme, when presented in a field of 4-5 words, with 90% accuracy.

Example #2: [Client] will state a word that rhymes with a given word, during a structured reading exercise, in 4 out of 5 opportunities.

Syllable Awareness

Example #1: [Client] will underline the first syllable within a given word, when presented in a worksheet format, with 80% accuracy.

Example #2: [Client] will tap out each syllable within words, during a structured activity, in 9 out of 10 trials.

Phoneme Isolation

Example #1: [Client] will produce each phoneme within familiar 3-letter words, when presented on flashcards, with 70% accuracy.

Example #2: [Client] will identify the words that begin with the same sound as a given word, when presented with visual stimuli (i.e., pictures/items), in 8 out of 10 trials.

Sound Blending

Example #1: [Client] will state the correct word when provided with a sound blend (e.g., “ c - a - t --- what animal is that?”), during a structured activity, with 90% accuracy.

Example #2: [Client] will blend each individual phoneme to produce a complete word, during a reading task with the clinician, in 4 out of 5 opportunities.

Read more about phonological awareness and potential deficits to determine if these goals could be appropriate for your client!

Looking for more?

For more goals posts , check out our collection of other speech and language goals:

• How to Write Pragmatic Language Goals
• How to Write Receptive Language Goals
• How to Write AAC Goals
• How to Write Articulation Goals
• How to Write Expressive Language Goals
• How to Write Play Skills Goals
• How to Write Fluency Goals (Stuttering)
• How to Write Voice Goals (Pediatric)
• How to Write Cluttering Goals

Want to know how we prep ourselves for goal-writing (and more)?

These are some of our favorite resources for working:

• Blue light glasses - placebo effect or not, they make a huge difference for me!
• Lap desk - for when working on the couch is needed (or wanted)
• Notepads - does anyone else make lists on lists on lists? Or just me?

Citations/further resources

Roseberry-McKibbin, C., & Hegde, M. N. 1. (2016). An advanced review of speech-language pathology: Preparation for PRAXIS and comprehensive examination (4th ed.). Austin, Tex.: PRO-ED

https://www.communicationcommunity.com/what-is-phonological-awareness/

You might also like

How to Write Early Intervention Goals for Speech Therapy [goal bank included]

How to Write Stuttering Goals [with goal bank]

How to Write AAC Goals [with goal bank]

How to Write Neurodiversity-Affirming Speech Therapy Goals [with goal bank]

How to Write Following Directions Goals (with goal bank)

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Great Language Therapy Using Rhyme Stories

• Literacy and Language Therapy

Using rhyme stories for speech and language therapy is like driving your car on cruise control.  The rhyme takes over the cadence, intonation, and length so we can focus on the content.  Communication requires expectation.  Someone says something, and we respond.  Someone asks a question that we then answer.  The rhyme naturally delivers this expectation through the rhymed syllable sound or word.

Rhyme stories can be as short and simple as Humpty Dumpty or as advanced as a full storybook poem like Room on a Broom .

Rhyme Stories are great for therapy because:

• You can find simple to complex rhymes to easily match even the most profound communication deficits.
• Many students have familiarity with rhymes.
• Rhymes are present in all cultures.
• Rhymes easily enable the production of longer utterances by employing meter and relying on repetitious phrasing.
• There are many opportunities to use past, present, future, and even conditional tense.
• Rhythms present in the rhymes create natural opportunities for whole body and kinesthetic movements.
• Phonological syllable-building is aided by clapping or tapping the beat.
• Many rhymes have moral or ethical themes embedded in their message.

How to use Rhyme Stories in Speech Therapy

The Gruffalo is a great example of the power of rhyme.  It is a full text story including location, characters, problems, and solutions. A mouse invents a monster to scare off other animals who want to eat him but winds up meeting an actual Gruffalo in the end.  Let’s use it as an example for what we can accomplish in speech therapy.

The Gruffalo / El Gruffalo

by Julia Donaldson

Rhyme Stories, Games, and Activities

Rhymes = action and most rhymes have been around for a long time.  Do an internet image search for YOUR BOOK + ACTIVITY and you will find a treasure trove of masks, games, songs, catapults, to adapt for therapy.  The sky is truly the limit.  For The Gruffalo , you can even go to www.Gruffalo.com !  Some of our favorites for the Gruffalo include:

• Anatomy charts for the Gruffalo’s amazing body parts.
• Lunch bag puppets to eat the animals with
• Animal story-sequencing activities
• terrible tusks
• terrible claws
• terrible teeth
• in his terrible jaws.

Rhyme Books for Speech Therapy

Content for this essay adapted from Literacy-Based Speech and Language Therapy Activities. Use it to create powerful language therapy using predictable books, and much, much more!

Hi guys, I am a member and received your super awesome book on literacy based activities. I don’t think I downloaded the e book when I joined. Is it too late?

No, I will send it to you.

There’s an eBook?i also have yours and Phuong’s great literacy book. Bought it summer 2017. Can I get the eBook as well?

HI Allison, The comment was relating to the Communications disorders ebook that comes for subscribing to the blog. All of the up-to-date literacy materials made it into the book you have. Best, Scott

I love this idea, and have been huge admirer of the book “Literacy based speech and Language Therapy activities” I would appreciate if we could have Video support of the activities in the book.

I love this idea of using Rhyme for developing language. I would like to know if there is an EBP on this.

Hi Swapna There is a ton of research on the use of Rhyme that comes out of literacy research. Here are a couple quick reads that head in that direction: Imagination Tree ; Early Childhood News

Also, we have videos together for literacy-based intervention that are part of our live presentations but we haven’t turned them into courses yet. Check out this blog article with embedded videos of some of the practices. Also, we have 30 plus videos up on youtube now.

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RHYMING REINDEER LANGUAGE ACTIVITY

December 23, 2013 By inspiredtree

We might be occupational and physical therapists, but we can spot a great language activity from a mile away!  We’re very lucky to work with some incredible speech language pathologists who amaze us by working speech, communication, social, and cognitive skills into unique, creative activities for kids every day.  Today’s activity was created by one of our dear friends, speech language pathologist Julianne Wolf.  She came up with this cute speech therapy rhyming activity called The Rhyming Reindeer game as one of her speech therapy activities for the holidays.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED: Clothespins, small “googly eyes”, brown pipe cleaners, small pompom noses (multi-colored), hot glue gun, markers (optional), printable word/picture cards

WHAT TO DO: Make up several clothespin reindeer ahead of time, each with a different colored pompom nose.  Glue “googly eyes” toward the bottom of the clothespin and a pompom nose at the tip.  Wrap a brown pipe cleaner around the top of the pin to look like antlers.  To begin the activity, hand a reindeer clip to each child in the group.  Tell the kids that these aren’t just any reindeer…they’re Rhyming Reindeer!  The Rhyming Reindeer need to fly and clip onto to the picture of the object that rhymes with the color word of their nose.  Show kids how to use their Super Fingers to squeeze their clothespins!  Call on one child to go first and hold up two picture choices (e.g. if the child’s reindeer has a red nose, hold up a picture of a ball and a bed).  Have the child find and clip his clothespin to the picture that rhymes with the color word of his reindeer’s nose (e.g. red/bed).  Continue until all children have had a turn, or if playing with only one child, until all of the reindeer clips have been used.

HOW TO CHANGE IT UP: -Warm up before the activity by handing out the reindeer clothespins and having kids fly the reindeer to different body parts or in different directions (“Fly your reindeer to your feet!  Fly your reindeer to your tummy!  Fly your reindeer up!  Fly your reindeer down!”) -Warm up using the following poem, moving the reindeer to match the words:

REINDEER, GO! Reindeer, go, Over the snow, Fast, fast and never slow; Up and down, Thro’ the town; Go, reindeer, Go, go go! Reindeer, fly, Up in the sky; Where stars are twinkling high; O’er the hill, Smooth and still; Fly, reindeer, Fly, fly, fly!

Knee-Jogging RhymeTranslated from the Norwegian Nursery. Adapted By: Terry Kluytmans, 1999. KIDiddles.com

-If kids are not ready for rhyming, the activity can be modified to work on more simple concepts like color matching (clip reindeer to matching color card) or picture identification (have the child clip his reindeer to the requested picture). -Examples of words used for picture cards: red/bed, green/clean, white/kite, blue/glue, black/back, brown/crown – see printable -Have kids make their own reindeer clothespins as a crafty lead-in to this activity! -Don’t have mini pompoms in your craft stash?  No problem!  Just color with a different colored marker on the back of each clothespin.

SKILL AREAS ADDRESSED: Positional concept terms; receptive identification of body parts, colors, pictures, objects; phonological awareness (rhyming); fine motor skills, visual perceptual skills, cognitive skills

Julianne Wolf holds a Master’s Degree in Communication Disorders from Bowling Green State University.  She has been a school-based speech-language pathologist for 4 years and also works as an adjunct clinical educator at the Baldwin Wallace Speech Clinic in Berea, Ohio.  During the summers, she splits her time between the Baldwin Wallace Speech Clinic, where she facilitates a camp for children who are non-verbal, and clinical work at the Middleburg Early Education Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

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Speech Therapy Resources for Parents: Phonological Awareness

Table of Contents

What is Phonological Awareness and Why Does it Matter?

Simply stated, Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. As it is a skill commonly targeted in Speech & Language Therapy, it is a popular subject for speech therapy parent resources.

Phonological Awareness typically begins developing in preschool and is an important precursor to reading and spelling. Phonological Awareness skills continue to develop through formal reading instruction (up through about 1st grade).

The good news is that if your child struggles with reading or spelling, he or she can benefit from specific treatment in Phonological Awareness, regardless of age and grade level. There are many speech therapy resources for parents to assist in developing your child’s Phonological Awareness.

Read on to learn more about speech therapy parent resources for this important skill set and how your child’s Speech-Language Pathologist provides Phonological Awareness instruction.

How Does My Child’s Speech-Language Pathologist Teach Phonological Awareness?

Here’s where things get a little technical. Feel free to skim over this section and move on to how to teach your child phonological awareness skills for some fun speech therapy parent resource suggestions.

When teaching Phonological Awareness, the sequence of speech therapy instruction and intervention, from order of least complex to most complex skills, is as follows:

• Dividing words into syllables,
• Identifying and creating rhymes,
• Matching words with the same beginning sound (alliteration),
• Breaking up syllables of words into onset and rime,
• Identifying the first and last sound in a word,
• Blending individual sounds into words,
• Separating words into their individual sounds (“segmenting”) ,
• Deleting and manipulating (i.e., changing) sounds in words.

(Source: LSHSS )

Phonological Awareness vs Phonemic Awareness

You may have also heard the term “Phonemic Awareness” before. Phonemic Awareness is a smaller subset of the broader category of Phonological Awareness.

Phonemic awareness contains the more complex knowledge skills, from breaking up the syllables of words into their onset (all sounds before the first vowel) and rime (the vowel and the sounds after the vowel) through deleting and manipulating the sounds in words.

Okay, glad we got through all that.

The good news is, Phonological Awareness and Phonemic Awareness can be taught and improves with practice! 

Your child’s Speech-Language Pathologist may already be working on these skills in therapy. It may be helpful to speak with your child’s therapist to determine the most helpful game plan for targeting Phonological Awareness and Phonemic Awareness at home. 

Still, don’t be discouraged by the seeming complexity of this process. There are plenty of speech therapy parent resources for Phonological Awareness intervention that are fun, easy, and support your child’s progress in speech therapy.

How Do I Teach My Child Phonological Awareness using Speech Therapy Parent Resources?

Helping to develop your child’s phonological and phonemic awareness skills can make a huge impact on their success in school as they are so closely connected to reading and writing and general language skills.

I love this speech therapy parent resource handout from Mrs. Rainbow Bright , which you can download for free from her Teachers Pay Teachers store. It contains simple instructions for fun Phonological Awareness activities that you can practice anywhere with your kids – at home, in the car, at the playground; you get the idea.

Some additional parent speech therapy resources for parents are listed below according to the Phonological Awareness skill set. 

Speech Therapy Parent Resources for Syllables and Rhyming Skills

Two of the earliest emerging, and most straightforward Phonological Awareness skills to teach are rhyme and syllables.

A simple speech therapy parent resource to help your child learn about syllables, or the “beat” of words, is by “clapping it out.” Say their name or a word. “Strawberry.” You all clap at each syllable, straw-ber-ry.

There are lots of options for rhyming word speech therapy resources for parents. It’s fun to help your child develop their rhyming skill through exposure to rhyming words and practice. Rhyming skills can be encouraged by:

• Reciting Nursery Rhymes,
• Listening to Kid-Friendly Songs with Rhymes,
• Reading Rhyming Books Together, and
• Playing games with Rhyming Words or Phrases.

ASHA  has a full-list of resources for each of these rhyming skill activities and this particular page is an excellent source of parent speech therapy resources.

In addition, I suggest you check out PBS Kids for a wonderful collection of beloved children’s rhyming books. Another great parent speech therapy resource is a A Teachable Teacher ’s list of rhyming books for younger kids. What’s more, you can check out Fun-A-Day for many creative games for practicing rhyming skills.

An additional rhyming book for preschool kids that you can access with an Epic! Account, free to  parents and teachers, is Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow .

Speech Therapy Parent Resources for Identifying Sounds in Words

If your child is working on identifying individual sounds in words there are plenty of speech therapy parent resource games to try. A popular and easy way to teach beginning and ending sounds, is the classic game, I Spy.

For alliteration, or identifying words with the same beginning sound , choose a target sound to focus on. For example, you can tell your child, “the word cat starts with the /k/ sound, k-k-kat.” Go around the room and point to other words that start with the /k/ sound (calendar, kitchen, candy). 

Once your child is comfortable, ask him or her to help you find other words starting with this sound. 

Once this skill is mastered, play the modified game of I Spy  to move on to words with the same final sounds . This game is great for maximizing your time on long car rides too!

Speech Therapy Parent Resources for Segmenting and Blending Words

When your child is ready to start segmenting, blending and manipulating phonemes, the therapy practice becomes a bit more complicated, and it can help to speak with your child’s Speech-Language Pathologist about how to best proceed.

In general though, when your child is ready to blend, or bring together sounds to form a word, it’s best to start with the simple words first. Separate the sounds in each word slowly and with a pause in between (e,.g., ‘rock’ is “r . . . ah . . . k”). Model using your fingers to represent each separate sound. Note that the number of letters often does not correspond with the number of sounds (e.g., “th,” “ch,” “sh” and many double vowels are only one sound).

When practicing blending sounds together to form words, again, start with the least complex words and move on from there. Model using your fingers to represent each sound. For example, seperate word t . . .oy, putting up one finger for the /t/ sound and the second finger up for “oy.” “If I combine those two sounds, I have the word ‘toy,’ what word do I have if I combine /t/ and ‘oy’”?

Speech Therapy Parent Resources for Deleting and Manipulating Sounds in Words

In order to assist your child in practicing the deletion of sounds in words, once again start with simple words and ask your child to remove the first sound. For example, if I remove the /k/ sound in “cop,” I am left with “op.” 

Move on to the final sound in words before asking your child to manipulate, or change the sounds in words. 

Sound manipulation would look like this, “if I changed the /k/ sound in “cop” with a /b/ sound, I would end up with “bop,” what word do I end up with if I changed the /k/ sound in “cop” with a /b/”?

In Closing: Practice, But Make Sure it’s Enjoyable

Remember, the more you practice phonological awareness skills with your child, the better she’ll or he’ll become. 

Whatever you do, though, the most important consideration is that the child is enjoying herself or himself.

Incorporate games, stories, songs and rhymes that the child likes and make sure you don’t pressure your child to work on tasks that are too difficult for him or her as this may become discouraging and thwart progress. As always, you may want to consult your child’s Speech-Language Pathologist for further information and help with determining your child’s skill level.

The Future of Phonological Awareness Speech Therapy Resources for Parents: Digital Therapeutics and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Digital therapeutics and artificial intelligence (AI) are 100% going to play a significant role in the future of speech therapy , including phonological awareness therapy.

These growing and innovative tools offer lots of advantages that traditional speech therapy methods may not provide. With the integration of digital therapeutics and AI, speech therapy can become more accessible, convenient, and effective for parents and their children who require assistance with phonological awareness.

First, digital therapeutics and AI can offer different and engaging interactive experience for children, one no one has dreamt of yet. These new experiences might help the therapy process more enjoyable and less intimidating, which in turn can result in higher levels of motivation and participation from children.

The use of technology can also make it easier for children to understand and retain important concepts, such as the relationship between sounds and letters.

Second, digital therapeutics and AI can provide real-time data and analysis on a child’s progress and performance. This makes everyone’s lives easier.

This can help speech therapists and parents to monitor progress and adjust therapy goals and techniques as needed.

With digital tools, it is easier to track progress over time and identify areas where additional support may be required. Also, digital tools can also provide a more comprehensive understanding of a child’s strengths and weaknesses, making it easier to design therapy plans that are tailored to their specific needs.

Finally, digital therapeutics and AI can make speech therapy more accessible and convenient. With online tools, parents and children can receive therapy from anywhere, at any time, without the need to travel to a physical therapy location.

This can be particularly beneficial for families who live in rural areas or who have scheduling conflicts that make it difficult to attend in-person therapy sessions.

Overall, digital therapeutics and AI have the potential to revolutionize the way speech therapy, including phonological awareness therapy, is delivered to parents and children, and ones we must consider, learn and adapt to for the betterment of therapy.

For more speech therapy parent resources, check out our  “Parent Resources”  Speech Therapist Tools category and our blog post, “ Speech Therapy Resources for Parents: Story Retell .”

Special thanks to Josh Applegate , Kelly sikkema , Sai de silva and tookapik for the use of their photos for this article.

Related posts:

• Speech Therapy Resources for Parents: Story Retell
• Speech Therapy Activities for Preschool & Grade School (PBS Edition)
• Salary of a Speech-Language Pathologist
• Digital Therapeutics & AI in Speech Language Therapy

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