Card Sets Stage One Complete

All of the card sets for the early emerging consonants have now been posted. You can find links to all of them here. (In case you were wondering, there is no final /h/ set because the /h/ sound does not actually occur in the final position of words in English.) I spent a lot of time working on these sets and I'm pretty happy with the final product. I'd love to get some feedback from any of you who are using them. Also, please let me know if you find any typos or errors so I can get those corrected.

I am actually working on a book of therapy materials that expands on these basic card sets. I'm expanding the backs of the cards with symbols so the cards can be mixed together and easily resorted back into sets by phoneme, position, or vowel and with symbols for sorting into phonological processes. The book will also include simple two-syllable words for each phoneme and phrase/sentence level cards for each phoneme as well. There will also be games (board game, bingo, etc) for each set of words. I am still at least 4-6 weeks from having a rough draft done, but when I do finish the rough draft I would like to get a couple of SLP's lined up to do some proofreading and product testing. If you are interested, send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com.

So, for now, I have no more free sets in the works. Once I get this first book up and running, I plan to start working on free sets for the mid-emerging sounds (f, v, k, g, s, z, w, y), but that is several months away.

Initial H: Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Cards

Description

These articulation picture card sets are designed to be more comprehensive than the typical sets you might find elsewhere. The target audience for these sets are young children or children with more severe speech delays that need intensive practice with sounds at a one-syllable level or simple two-syllable level. No blends or vocalic /r/ sounds are included in these sets. (Scroll down to preview sets.)

Key Features

• Initial and Final sets include 30 one-syllable words that begin or end with the target sound.
• The words are simple and are easily understood by or easily taught to young children.
• Combines the target sound with all possible vowel sounds at least once.
• Words are sorted by difficulty level for an easy progression from easy to hard.
• Describes the progression from most intense prompts to least intense.
• Provides a simple carrier phrase for every word.
• A gestural prompt for the target sound is explained.
• A list of therapy activities is included.
• Includes 30 therapy cards with the target word and a picture on the front,
  and the difficulty level and the carrier phrase printed on the back.

Permissions

I give permission to copy, print, or distribute these card sets provided that:

1. Each copy makes clear that I am the document's author.
2. No copies are altered without my express consent.
3. No one makes a profit from these copies.
4. Electronic copies contain a live link back to my original and print copies not for merely personal use contain the URL of my original.

Looking for Feedback

I would love to hear back from anyone who uses the word sets. Let me know if there is anything you would change. Comment on this page, or send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com.

Where can I find more?

More sets are on my Free Speech Therapy Articulation Cards page.

Card Sets

To download click on the image to open it full size. Then right click on the image, choose "save as" and save the page to your computer.

Instructions for printing and using the cards are included in the set.

The Weekly Review: Week 21

Blog Post that Made Me Think

Chris at RudeCactus.com wrote a post about how much and what kind of information people post about themselves online. He also poses a hypothetical question about online posting behavior. I've wrestled with this issue myself. When I decided to blog about the personal topics of my family and my daughter's Apraxia I decided to use pseudonyms. Dala, Ava, Michael, and all of the other names you see on the blog are pseudonyms. It was just a step that made me slightly more comfortable posting about our personal life on the internet. I am also constantly making judgements about which anecdotes are appropriate for public consumption and which are more private. My husband and I have decided that we are only comfortable posting pictures of the children in which their faces cannot be seen. When I am unsure if my husband will be comfortable about a certain posting topic or picture, I check with him first. I'm sure everyone draws the line between what they're willing to put online and what they aren't differently, but I hope that everyone thinks about it a little.

Weekly Weather Observation

Well, it will hardly come as a surprise that the weather has been extremely hot around here. Reading the news, that statement applies to nearly every area of the US. The thing is, I find myself thinking that I am grateful for that heat to some extent, because it means that winter is not near. I'm originally from New Orleans, LA and still travel there at least once a year. Hot is familiar. Winters that are cold with snow, ice, sleet, and salt all over the roads still feel fundamentally unfamiliar even though I've been living with them for well over half my life. I remember growing up thinking that a jacket was a "winter coat". So, even when it is so hot that I don't take the children outside to play, I'm still glad that I can leave the house without bundling everyone into coats and hats and that I still have daylight at 7:30 pm.

The Weekly Michael

Oh my the volume control has become skewed. All of a sudden Michael seems to be extremely loud all the time as his default volume. I wouldn't say he's quite shouting, but almost. He seems to think that talking at a very high volume is a perfectly normal thing to do. And he's so earnest when he's talking. He really just wants you to hear the VERY IMPORTANT THING he has to share. I hate to interrupt that earnestness with the rather mundane request to "tell me quietly please," but I am starting to feel assualted. It is exhausting, somehow, to be shouted at all day long by an earnest three year old. I suppose my next campaign will need to be constant reminders to use an inside voice.

Ava this Week:

In the beginning I didn't have a name because Ava couldn't talk. That was hard and so when "Mama" came I was so excited. I love "Mama." If I could choose what to be called forever, that would be it. Then, a few weeks ago, Ava switched to "Mommy" completely on her own. I noticed, of course, but I didn't draw particular attention to the switch hoping it would pass and that she'd return to "Mama" at some point in the future.

This week, she has suddenly started calling me "Maw-Maw". Seriously?!? "Maw-Maw?" It makes me feel like an 80 year old grandmother. Definitly not my first choice. Ok. It also makes me giggle a little inside because it is pretty funny. Again, I'm trying not to draw her attention to the shift hoping this too shall pass.

The Weekly Kittens:

The kittens have been sleeping with us. In the beginning it was because we needed to keep them separated from our older cat until everyone adjusted and our bedroom was the most convenient place to accomplish that. Now, we just like it. Every so often, in the middle of the night I will be startled out of sleep by a kitten grooming the tip of my nose. I'm not sure which kitten it is, because it is dark, I'm sleepy, and I can't see without my glasses on anyway, but someone likes to groom my nose in the middle of the night. If you've never been licked by a cat, their tongue is like sandpaper. As cute and sweet as it is to be groomed by a kitten, being awoken by sandpaper rubbing across the tip of your nose in the middle of the night is not the best way to wake up. I adore them anyway.