About this activity
Twelve activity verbs matched to their symbols: play, eat, read, sleep, draw, wash, run, sing, swim, ride, paint, build. Verbs are the load-bearing part of an AAC vocabulary — they are what turn a noun into a message — and they are harder to recognise as symbols than concrete nouns, because a picture of running is a picture of a person.
How to use it in a session
Match a few pairs, then leave the board and use the same verbs in an activity. Recognition on a screen and retrieval on a device are different skills, and this board builds the first. Say the word as the student selects, so the auditory label and the symbol arrive together. Ten minutes is a full pass; running it twice in a session gives you a clean before-and-after within the same day.
What to listen for
Watch which verbs are confused with each other. Draw and paint share a picture logic and are frequently swapped, as are run and ride. That is a symbol discrimination issue rather than a vocabulary one, and it is fixed by contrasting the two directly rather than by more repetitions of each. Notice also whether the student searches or goes straight to the symbol — speed is what separates a symbol they have hunted down from one they know.
Carrying it home
Name the verb while it is happening. As the child washes their hands, say wash; as they ride, say ride. Symbols learned against a real action stick better than symbols learned against a picture of one.
Questions
- Does this teach my student's specific device layout?
- No. It builds symbol-to-meaning recognition for common verbs. The motor plan on the student's own system still has to be practised on that system.
- Is an account needed?
- No. It plays in full with no login and no card.
- What age is it written for?
- Kindergarten through fifth grade, and any emergent symbol user working on core verbs.