About this activity
Twelve words ending in /k/: book, duck, rock, sock, back, lake, bike, rake, neck, pack, oak, peek. All single syllables, which keeps the load low for the young children this target usually belongs to. The final /k/ is quiet and unreleased in ordinary speech, which makes it one of the easiest consonants to drop entirely.
How to use it in a session
Exaggerate the release in your model. A final /k/ said with a small puff of air is much easier for a child to hear and copy than the unreleased version adults normally produce, and you can fade the exaggeration later. Ask for the word, then a two-word phrase — my book, big rock. Six minutes covers the twelve.
What to listen for
Listen for deletion rather than substitution. Boo for book is final consonant deletion, which affects many sounds at once and is a pattern rather than a single-sound error. Watch the words with long vowels — lake, bike, rake, oak — where the vowel takes up more of the word and the final consonant is proportionally quieter.
Carrying it home
Book, duck, sock and bike are frequent enough in a young child's day to notice. Asking a family to listen for the end of the word gives them something specific, which works far better than asking them to listen for a sound.
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Kindergarten through third grade.
- Do I need an account?
- No, all twelve cards play free.
- My child drops the last sound in lots of words, not just these. Is that different?
- Yes — that is final consonant deletion, a pattern across many sounds rather than a single-sound difficulty. It is usually addressed as a pattern, which is faster than working sound by sound.