About this activity
Eight /s/ words drawn from a teenager's actual vocabulary: schedule, sophomore, sneakers, assignment, sports, cousin, December, seniors. Word lists for a residual lisp are usually built from picture-friendly nouns aimed at six-year-olds, which is a problem when the student is fifteen — these are words they say every week.
How to use it in a session
Work from the words the student uses most. Schedule, assignment and seniors turn up daily in a secondary timetable, and accuracy on those is worth more than accuracy on a list. Ask for the word, then in a phrase from their real life — my schedule, the assignment is due — because the phrase is where the sound has to survive. Ten minutes covers the eight with phrases.
What to listen for
Listen for where the /s/ falls in the word. Sports and seniors have the sound at the start and the end; assignment and cousin have it in the middle; December has it in an unstressed syllable. A residual lisp is often position-dependent by this age, and the pattern is more informative than an overall count.
Carrying it home
These words are unavoidable in a school week. Asking a student to notice their own production of schedule once a day is realistic self-monitoring, and by this age noticing is the target rather than practice.
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Sixth through twelfth grade, for residual /s/ errors that have persisted past the usual window.
- Do I need an account?
- No, all eight cards play free.
- Why use school vocabulary rather than picture words?
- Because a fifteen-year-old will not engage with a deck built for a six-year-old, and because these are the words they actually say. Practice on vocabulary they use daily transfers immediately.