About this activity
Twelve words with /l/ in the middle: balloon, yellow, pillow, gorilla, salad, melon, ruler, collar, silly, hello, olive, jelly. All two or three syllables, since a medial sound needs a word long enough to have a middle, and several of them double the letter — yellow, gorilla, collar, silly, jelly — which puts the sound right on the syllable break.
How to use it in a session
Split the word at the sound: ba-lloon, ye-llow. That gives the child a final /l/ and then an initial one, both usually easier, and rejoining them is the target. The doubled-letter words are the clearest ones to split, since the two halves of the sound are visible. Six minutes covers the twelve at word level.
What to listen for
Listen for the sound weakening rather than being replaced. Between two vowels, /l/ often arrives with a light, incomplete tongue contact that sounds almost like a vowel — ye-ow rather than yellow. Watch gorilla and balloon, where the target sits in the stressed syllable of a three-syllable word and competes with the length of the word itself.
Carrying it home
Yellow, pillow, jelly and hello are frequent enough to notice without arranging anything. Asking a family to listen for one word at a predictable moment — hello at the door — gives them a task they can keep.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Kindergarten through third, usually after initial /l/ is stable.
- Do I need an account?
- No, all twelve cards play free.
- Why is medial position harder?
- Because the tongue has to reach the contact and leave it inside a running word, with no boundary to lean on. In several of these the target also sits in an unstressed syllable, where it carries less force.