About this activity
Eight common target words matched to pictures: cat, sun, dog, fish, bus, moon, star, bird. It is a short board on purpose — for a young child at the very start of articulation work, eight items with pictures is a session's worth of practice, and a longer list mostly produces fatigue rather than more repetitions.
How to use it in a session
Ask for the word on every selection, right and wrong. The matching is the game and the naming is the practice, and without the naming rule a student can complete the whole board without producing a sound. Ask for a phrase on the pairs the student gets easily — I see the bus — so the harder productions land where the child is already succeeding. Eight minutes is a comfortable pass.
What to listen for
Listen across the different sounds rather than for one. Cat, sun, dog and fish sample four different targets, and for a young child still being sorted out this board is as much a screening as a practice — which of the eight are accurate, and which are consistently wrong, tells you where to start. Notice whether errors are consistent: the same wrong production every time is a different picture from a word that changes each attempt.
Carrying it home
Eight words is a short enough list to actually go home. Ask the family to notice the two or three the child is already getting right rather than the ones they are not — noticing success is the part families can do without training.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Kindergarten through third, and particularly the early sessions where you are still working out what a young child can produce.
- Is it free to play?
- Yes, no account and no card needed.
- It covers several sounds rather than one. Is that useful?
- For early work, yes — it samples across targets. Once you know what the student is working on, a position-specific deck gives more practice on the one sound.