Final Z: Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Cards

Final /z/ Card Set

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.

I recommend you print on cardstock and laminate for durability.

Description

This articulation picture card set is designed to be more comprehensive than the typical sets you might find elsewhere. The target audience for this set is young children or children with more severe speech delays that need intensive practice with final /z/ at a one-syllable level. No blends or vocalic /r/ sounds are included in this set. The set pairs the final /z/ with as many different vowel sounds as possible to maximize co-articulation variety.

Key Features

• This set includes 20 therapy cards with the target word and picture on the front, and the difficulty level and a carrier phrase on the back.
• The words are all VC or CVC in syllable shape.
• The words 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.

Permissions

I give permission to copy, print, or distribute this card set 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 this card set. Let me know if you find errors or 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. Other card sets include /p, b, t, d, m, n, h, f, v, k, g, w, s, z, l, ch, sh, s-blends, and l-blends/ and more sets are being added regularly.

What kinds of activities can I do with this cardset?

1. 10 Card Set Game and Activity Ideas
   
2. Simple Speech Card Puzzles
   
3. Speech Card Stories
   
4. Speech Card Caterpillar
   
5. Speech Card Game: What's Hiding?
   
6. Speech Card Game: Speech Switcheroo (An Uno-Style Game)
   
7. Speech Card Set Activity: Magnetic Speech Cards
   
8. Speech Card Game: Speech Fours
   
9. Speech Card Game: Old Maid
   
10. Speech Card Set Activity: Bang!
    
11. Speech Card Set Activity: What's Hiding Behind Door Number...?
    
12. Speech Card Set Activity: Customizing a Homework Sheet
    
13. Speech Card Set Activity: Making a Simple Sentence Flipbook
    
14. Speech Game: Find-It
    

Time to Stop the Upwards Creep

I've discussed this before. I could search for the post (or two) and link to them, but I'm pretty sure that would be a depressing exercise emphasizing how long I've been postponing this particular battle so I'm going to skip that part.

I've been gaining weight. Steadily. I put on weight with the back-to-back pregnancies. That's fairly typical. Ever since I stopped breastfeeding though, I've been trending upwards rather than back down. The craziness that was life with an infant and toddler, and then two toddlers, and then a preschooler and toddler (etc.) prevented me from focusing on it overly much. Once or twice I'd try to start a regular exercising habit only to abandon it a week or so later.

It's time though. The children are older. In about a month they'll both be in preschool five mornings a week. My husband and I have been working on a new plan of attack for about a month now and so far it is working. I'm down about 6 1/2 pounds. I have many more to go, but that's a pretty decent start.

We had to get geeky about it though. We're using a calorie tracking app called Lose It on our iPhones. It is a free app. You can simply scan bar codes in and then choose your portion size. It also has a pretty decent database if you don't have a bar code handy. It's amazing how warped my sense of portion size had gotten. Logging food intake is really powerful.

We're combining that with a device called a Fitbit. It's like a fancy pedometer that talks to your computer and you can link the Fitbit data to Lose It. It'll track steps, stairs climbed, and even your sleeping patterns. It'll tell you how active (or sedentary) your lifestyle is and then estimate the number of calories you burn in your average day. As it turns out, I'm pretty darned sedentary. I spend a lot of time at a computer. I needed to adjust my dieting calorie goal down about 250 calories beyond the target Lose It gave me in order to lose a pound a week.

I'm pretty sure the Fitbit was my missing link. I had tried calorie tracking before, but always abandoned it when it didn't seem to be working. I needed to know the piece about my habitual activity level so that I could start in the right place.

At the same time, wearing the Fitbit is encouraging me to be more active. I climb up and down the stairs a few extra times so I can get a badge for doing so 10 times in the day. (I have yet to get the badge for doing 25 flights in a day. I need to try that one day next week.) I take a walk with the kids so I can get 1000 more steps in.

The Lose It / Fitbit combo and regular weigh-ins showing it is all working is pretty motivating. Pounds are dropping off. I have more energy. I am having far fewer blood sugar "crashes" and random cravings. It's all pretty nice actually.

More importantly, this is sustainable. When I reach my target weight, the Lose It / Fitbit combo will give me an accurate idea of what I can eat to maintain that new weight, but not start gaining again.

Lose It is free. If you have a smartphone, you can use the app. If not, you can use it on your computer. I highly recommend it. If you have some extra cash to commit to the project, check out the Fitbit on Amazon too. It's been a big part of the weight loss puzzle for us.

Swimming Update

Two swimming lessons and two trips to a Six Flags water park later and Ava is... improving. Given the proper circumstances, Michael could be a fish. Proper circumstances would be regular opportunities to play in water deeper than his bathtub or the kiddie pool on the deck. He loves it. He loves dunking his head under the water and trying to swim. At the moment his "swimming" mostly involves sinking to the bottom and being pulled back up by an adult. He surfaces sputtering, blowing water out of his nose, and deliriously happy. But he would get better with practice.

Ava is more cautious. What she hates most is being dunked against her will and she protests every activity that involves the involuntary dipping of her head into the water. But... and it's a big but, she's more angry than terrified about it at this point. She cries, but not for long. In the activities where the children are encouraged to put their mouths, ears, or even entire faces in under their own control she's beginning to voluntarily participate. Then she'll look back over her shoulder to make sure I'm paying appropriate attention to her bravery and competence.

Gosh how I love them both. I'm so enjoying them learn to love the water. I always did as a child. I wish I had more opportunity as an adult.

So, decent progress on the swimming lesson front. Now did I ever tell you guys about the gymnastics session where Michael fell off the beam, cut his lip with his teeth, and I had to call the pediatrician to ask if he needed stitches? Fun times.

The Weekly Review: Week 69

SLP Idea of the Week

I saw this fine motor activity post and thought it would make a fun reinforcer during articulation therapy for preschoolers. Gather a piece of styrofoam (or a large lump of playdough), several golf tees, several marbles, and your articulation stimuli. First let the child hammer the golf tees into the styrofoam (or playdough). Then have them balance the marbles on top of the golf tees. You get to work on articulation and improve fine motor skills at the same time all while keeping a young child completely engaged.

Ava this Week

Ava gave me one of those heart-stopping moments of terror this week. Here's what happened.

Ava has discovered clothes. I am not a clothes person. I have two pairs of jeans and 6-7 t-shirts and I simply rotate between what's clean. I am perfectly happy that way. Ava has this gorgeous chest-of-drawers full of little girl clothes because I have a good friend with a little girl two years older than Ava and we get her hand-me-downs.

Ava loves digging through her chest of drawers and pulling out something new to put on. She needs a stool to get into the top drawer and even then, she has to be on tippy toes to see into that drawer. One night I was getting her ready for bed and told her to go pick out a shirt to sleep in. I watched her drag her stool over and pull open the top drawer hanging onto its edge to try to peer inside. And then it happened.

The entire dresser began to tip. I watched it pull away from the wall and time slowed down. I said something, but I truly don't remember what. The dresser is heavy. It's a really massive piece of furniture. It was going to crush her. I wasn't going to get to it in time. I was sitting in a chair completely across the room. Just at that moment she lost her balance. I don't know if it was my panicked voice that startled her, or just coincidence. It was a wonderful happenstance though because when she lost her balance she also lost her grip on the drawer and the dresser thumped back against the wall. Another half an inch and it would have fallen the other way. Onto her.

Just thinking about it makes me sick. I have forbidden her to go into her drawers until we get one of those straps to childproof the thing and attach it to the wall. Perhaps in about seven or eight spots just to make me feel better.

Weekly Michael

Once a week my parents come over and we have a three-generation family dinner. It is a ton of fun and we all look forward to it. My dad has a joke he tells the kids regularly that they always laugh (and groan) at. He'll ask them, "What's worse than finding a bug in your piece of bread?" They'll respond, "What?" After a slight pause he delivers the punchline "Finding half a bug in your bread." At that point they giggle, groan, laugh, and complain, "Eww Grandpa!"

This week Grandpa told his joke again getting the usual laughs from the children. Several minutes later during a pause in the conversation Michael asked, "What's worse than finding half a bug in your piece of bread?" He had instantly captured the complete attention of all the adults at the table. We were wondering where exactly he was going with this. We dutifully asked, "What?" He delivered his punchline "Finding a quarter of a bug in your bread!" It doesn't sound funny typing it all out. Perhaps you had to be there. We all busted out laughing. It was hilarious. Michael's first joke and it was a punchline based on math.

______

I have another Michael story this week. We were trying (I think ultimately, unsuccessfully) to make homemade rock candy. The activity gave us the opportunity to discuss concepts like dissolving, solutions, boiling, and super saturated solutions. I, however, forgot to refresh my memory on exactly what those concepts mean in detail and of course Michael called me on it. "How does the sugar dissolve into the water? Why does more dissolve when the water is hot? Why does even more dissolve when the water is boiling? What happens when the solution cools back down?" Darn it. I couldn't answer those questions. Perhaps it will be a good thing, a week from now, when the experiment fails and we have to try again. I'll study up on the answers to those questions before our redo.

Liquid Watercolor Activity: Contact Paper Resist

This time, I'll admit it. I was focused on product rather than process. I wanted the children to be really impressed with their creations and I knew ahead of time that if they turned out well I was going to display them. So, I did all the preparation ahead of time.

I used my cricut machine to cut the contact paper (if you do it that way, remember to R-L reverse the letters otherwise they'll be backwards when you go to stick them on). You could cut out letters and simple shapes by hand too.

I taped the watercolor paper down in some art trays to minimize mess and to try to prevent the buckling of the watercolor paper when the children got it soaking wet. Then I applied the contact paper designs and pressed them down well.

We used a wet-on-wet technique to paint (that just means get your watercolor paper wet before painting it with your liquid watercolors). So I started out by spraying the watercolor paper with a squirt bottle of water. I let them choose three related colors. I made one too so all three of us were painting at the same time.

They turned out beautifully and the children can't wait to hang their new nameplates in their rooms.

(This activity was inspired by this post.)

Liquid Watercolor Activity: Painting a Wooden Mosaic

One of the first projects we did with our new liquid watercolors was to paint a wooden mosaic. I prepared the mosaic ahead of time. I wanted the focus to be on the painting and so I streamlined a bit by having the mosaics ready. I made one for Michael and another for Ava.

I let each child choose three colors. Ava chose red, purple, and blue. Michael chose red, yellow, and orange. I opened those containers on their paint trays, gave them a paintbrush and water to clean it between colors, and let them paint.

Ava preferred a free-spirited approach to the project. She would saturate one piece and put dots on another. Then she did one long stripe across the entire page. She went back and added a second color to some of the wooden pieces she had already painted. And suddenly, she was done. It didn't bother her in the slightest that only half of her mosaic was painted.

Michael took a much more organized approach. He painted one column at a time and was never tempted to vary from that set pattern. He painted each wooden piece once and moved on. When the last piece was painted he was finished. He could not be persuaded to go back and try combining colors or adding dots.

I think I'll pull the mosaics out another day and see if they are interested in working on them again. My goal was for them to realize that the liquid watercolors are good for more than simply painting paper, and that goal was certainly achieved.

Ping Pong Balls = Speech Articulation Manipulative

Buy some ping pong balls from the dollar store. Print some speech articulation images and cut out. Cut small slits around the edges of each image. These will help the speech pictures lay flat when you glue them to the balls. Mod Podge them to the balls. Now you have a fun manipulative for therapy. Toss them in buckets. Play hot potato. Have children toss them back and forth saying the word until someone drops it. Play Find-It with them. Hide them like Easter eggs. Make two sets and match them. The possibilities are endless. Enjoy!

Tips for Parents: How to Have Fun, Productive Speech Practice Sessions at Home

I often get email questions about this. It's hard. Very young children (2-4 year olds) aren't good at structured activities to begin with. Also, you're working with children who find speaking difficult, so practicing talking isn't going to be their favorite thing to do.

1. If you have a super young, or super resistant child, don't do a structured activity at all. Instead, play a game, but keep a speech goal in mind. For example, fill a shallow dish with bubble juice and blow bubbles in it with a straw until the dish is full of bubbles. Then let the child pop bubbles with their finger and encourage them to say "Pop!" Or play with toy cars and frequently make them crash using the words "Beep," "Vroom", "Oh, no!", "Boom," etc. Build a block tower and say, "Up!" every time you put on a new block. Pick an activity the child will enjoy and consciously plan your speech goals for that activity. Your goal is to get your child to say the chosen words as many times as possible while playing the game.
2. Read the book: The Big Book of Exclamations by Teri K. Peterson with your child. Pay attention to the instructions in the book. Once you get the idea, you can use the same strategies with any picture book. Use them when reading to your child for at least 15 minutes a day. That's speech practice.
3. Incorporate my speech practice booklets (look at list at the end of this post) into your bedtime or naptime routine. Begin by simply reading the story to your child several times to familiarize them with the story and pictures. Then, begin pausing at each picture and pointing to it to encourage them to say the word and help you "read" the book. Every time you read the book with your child, put a sticker on the front of the book. My children love this activity, particularly if it gets them a couple of extra minutes with a parent before lights out.
4. If you really feel like your child is ready for more structured practice, begin with short sessions. Really short. No more than five minutes. If necessary, offer a reward when done. You decide when the session ends, not your child. So, if you sense that you can only get two more words from your child, tell them, "Two more, and then you're done and you can get your sticker (watch tv, have a piece of candy, etc.) You can fade out the rewards later. Right now, your goal is to get them to expect speech practice as a perfectly natural activity that will be a regular part of their daily life just like brushing teeth. Gradually increase the length of sessions.
5. Every child is different. I've tried lots of games with my little ones, but they honestly do quite well just practicing the cards in a drill format. I do five to 15 cards at a time and then offer a small treat (a single yogurt melt, or M&M or smartie). By the time they chew up that one treat, I have the next set of 5-15 ready to go. In that way I can get them to practice lots of words in even a short practice session. I keep my manner animated and throw in lots of praise. I try to keep the mood light.
6. Other children will not do well in drill format. I have lots of speech games ideas on the blog (see list at end of post). Read through them and choose one you think might work well with your child. You know your child best and should be able to make pretty good guesses about which ideas will work and which won't. (Highly recommended: Speech Switcheroo, Find-It, Speech Tiles, and Magnetic Speech Cards.)
7. Keep your long term goals in mind. If sitting down and trying to do structured sessions isn't working right now, make a decision to wait 6 weeks and then start over again. During the break use the indirect methods I discussed in #1-3. When you try structured sessions again in 6 weeks remember to start short and easy. Your goal is to get them to enjoy sitting down to do speech with you. You can increase the length and intensity of the sessions gradually. Consider beginning with easy words they can already make for a couple of weeks just to get them used to the routine of speech practice.

I hope that helps. Good luck!

Speech Games and Activities

1. 10 Card Set Game and Activity Ideas
   
2. Simple Speech Card Puzzles
   
3. Speech Card Stories
   
4. Speech Card Caterpillar
   
5. Speech Card Game: What's Hiding?
   
6. Speech Card Game: Speech Switcheroo (An Uno-Style Game)
   
7. Speech Card Set Activity: Magnetic Speech Cards
   
8. Speech Card Game: Speech Fours
   
9. Speech Card Game: Old Maid
   
10. Speech Card Set Activity: Bang!
    
11. Speech Card Set Activity: What's Hiding Behind Door Number...?
    
12. Speech Card Set Activity: Customizing a Homework Sheet
    
13. Speech Card Set Activity: Making a Simple Sentence Flipbook
    
14. Speech Game: Speech Stick Match
    
15. Speech Game: Speech Tiles
    
16. Printable Worksheet: Initial S
    
17. Speech Game: Find It
    

Speech Practice Booklets Available:

• Initial /s/ Homework Booklet - Sue's Tea Set
• Initial /l/ Homework Booklet - Lou's Busy Day
• Initial /sh/ Homework Booklet - Shy Shae
• Medial /f/ Homework Booklet - Alfie the Elephant
• Initial /fl/ Homework Booklet - Flynn Gets His Picture
• Final /k/ Homework Booklet - Silly Rhymes

If anyone has any other great ideas or tips, please share in the comments.

Paint Prep and Organization

The children are finally understanding the concept of needing to keep their paint colors separate in order to not end up with everything a muddy shade of brown. They are trying to clean their brush in between colors. I decided to celebrate by finally splurging on a wider variety of paint colors and not depending on mixing our own every time. It's pretty easy to get a decent green/orange/purple that way, but other colors are harder.

I ordered enough of these paint trays so that we could have a full set of 12 colors for each of us (mom, Ava, and Michael) of both washable liquid tempera paints and washable liquid watercolor paints. Then I stocked up on 12 colors of each. Now that I can save the paint in between uses in the paint trays, I should have enough paint for the next decade.

When everything arrived I dispensed the liquid tempera into the trays. Isn't it pretty? We have three trays like this.

Then it was time for the liquid watercolors. (Tip: Instead of peeling off the entire plastic seal that keeps it from spilling during shipping, just stick a pin through the hole in the lid to puncture the seal. So much less mess.) I quickly realized that the children were going to have a lot of trouble figuring out which colors are which with the liquid watercolors (kind of like food coloring, the color of the liquid in the bottle doesn't always match the color when used). My husband helped out and painted strips of watercolor paper with each color. When they dried we cut them in triangles and used mod podge to glue them beside each pot of paint. Hopefully the picture will make it clear. Now the kids will be able to tell which color is which.

I've been scouring the internet for projects using liquid watercolors and I'm planning to do liquid watercolor projects with the kids for the next few weeks. Consider that a warning - be prepared for lots of posts on liquid watercolor projects coming soon.

Pretty.

Nothing profound today. Just a pretty butterfly to brighten your morning (or afternoon, or evening).

Cut pretty design in contact paper (I used clear contact paper and my cricut) and stick design on construction paper, cardstock, or canvas. Then paint over your design. Let dry and then pull up the contact paper. It worked beautifully.

The Weekly Review: Week 68

SLP Idea of the Week

Nest 3 styrofoam cups (click here for pictures and original post) and then turn the stack on its side with the bottoms to your left and rims to your right. Write targeted initial phonemes on the rim of the cup on the left. Write vowels on the rim of the cup in the middle. Write targeted final phonemes on the rim of the cup on the right. Rotate the cups to form a wide variety of real and nonsense CVC words for practice. Simply remove the cup on the left to practice VC syllables. Remove the cup on the right to practice CV syllables.

Blog Posts of the Week

I had no idea hatching chicks was so complicated and exciting.

Ava this Week

My husband and I switch off every night. One night he'll put Michael to bed (brush teeth, read stories, sing songs, etc.) while I put Ava to bed and the next night we'll switch. Ava has taken to sneaking out of her bedroom on the night her Daddy puts her to sleep and coming to find me. She'll sweetly ask if I'll just come sing her "two more songs, please Mama?" How can I resist? I always go. It just takes a few minutes and it really settles her down.

Weekly Michael

I used to have to beg and plead to get Michael to leave his legos, erector set, marble run, or other indoor activity and go spend some time outdoors. Ever since we installed our DIY water park on the deck he's begging to go outside and will often disappear for an hour or more at a time. The deck is a mess. There's water in the sand table and sand in the inflatable pool. The ground under the deck is mostly mud and buckets of mud are scattered about the deck. The children dig up weeds and "plant" them in the buckets. I don't mind the mess though and I love seeing them play happily and independently outside this summer.

CVC Articulation Practice Frames: A Speech Articulation Activity

Print out one (or all) of these "frames" and use them to practice CVC speech words. Simply slide the sheet into a sheet protector and write one sound in each circle using a dry erase marker. After the child says the word, erase one of the sounds and write in another. So if you're working on final /n/, you could do pan, man, can, ran, ban, etc. Then switch your vowel and do pen, ten, men, den, hen, etc. This is a great way to work on speech, phonemic awareness, and early reading skills at the same time.

Find It: A Speech Articulation Game

My daughter absolutely loved playing this Find It speech articulation game.

Supplies:
3-5 cups that aren't transparent (you're going to be hiding something underneath)
a simple sticker chart
articulation pictures (a mini-sized initial /f/ set can be found at the end of this post)
stickers
tape
something to hide under the cups (I used a smiley face clip.)

Set up:
Put a piece of tape on the top of each picture and tape a picture to the top of each upside-down up. Hide object (in my case, "Mr. Smiley") under a cup. Have stickers, sticker chart, and extra pictures handy.

Directions:
Every time you find the hidden object, you get a sticker on the chart. If you fill the chart you'll get a prize. The child must say the word (x1, x3, in phrase, or in sentence) in order to get you to lift the cup and check underneath. Whenever they find the object, remove the picture and replace it with one in your reserve. Ask the child to hide their eyes while you move the hidden object to a new cup. That's it. In 15 minutes you can easily get 1-10 productions of each of your target words and the student(s) will be enraptured the entire time. If you're playing with a group, simply have a sticker chart for each child and let them take turns guessing.

The Second Giveaway Winner Is...

Commenter #4, cbiksacky who likes the CVC words included in the Phonology app. Congratulations to cbiksacky and thank you to everyone who participated. Thanks again to Learning Fundamentals for providing me with copies of some of their apps to review and use with my own children and for sponsoring our giveaways!

(cbiksacky, please contact me via email so I can arrange getting you a code to redeem your free app. You can find my email address here.)

One-Syllable Initial S Printable Worksheet

We're still working on initial /s/ around here and I was trying to do something a little different. Here's a printable worksheet I made using some of the initial /s/ words and pictures from the initial /s/ picture card set. I made sure that each /s/ word included here uses a different vowel for co-articulation practice purposes.

I'm just planning on doing a simple hunt with it. Use the word from the list in a sentence and then you get to put a sticker on the matching picture. You could motivate a child to do this multiple times by marking all the pictures with gold stars and then switching colors and putting a second (or even third) color on each picture.

I know there's something more creative I could do with this worksheet, but I just can't think of anything right now. I'll send a virtual gold star and warm thoughts to anyone who posts other ideas of how to use this worksheet in the comments.

First Swimming Lesson

The children had their first swimming lesson this week. This swimming school is amazing for little ones. It is a heated indoor pool just large enough for lessons with two teachers and five small children. The instructors do an amazing job of getting a wide variety of skills introduced and practiced in a half hour lesson using songs and games. In their very first lesson (and only second time in a pool) they blew bubbles, dunked their heads under water, kicked behind themselves while on their tummies, learned to hold on to the side of the pool and scoot towards a ladder, learned to scoop the water with their hands, and jumped in to be caught by waiting arms several times.

I was very impressed with the program. Michael had a wonderful time and enjoyed every second of the lesson. When it wasn't his turn with one of the instructors he dunked himself under the water over and over again. He was having a blast.

Ava's reaction was more complicated. She was having a wonderful time until they asked her to put her face in the water. Ava does have tubes in her ears, so it is possible her negative reaction to getting her head wet is due to some odd sensations with the ears. I think it is much more likely that it is residual sensory issues though.

She was persuaded to blow a few bubbles and was happy to leave that portion of the lesson behind. The teachers deliberately were teaching the children how to hold their breath while being dunked (very briefly) under the water though and Ava handled that very poorly. She got more and more agitated every time it happened and took longer to move on and get back into the flow of the lesson with each subsequent dunk. Finally, near the end of the 30 minute lesson, she just lost it and started crying. At that point the lesson was over.

When asked what she thought of swimming lessons, she was quick to state she didn't like the "getting my head wet part." However, she's not upset at the idea of going back, so it wasn't all bad for her. It will be interesting to see if next time is better or worse. I can see it going either way.

I think, next time, I will ask the instructors to give her a verbal warning before dunking her and ask them to give her a little more recovery time between dunks (and explain why). If I can get them to modify things just a little I think she'll desensitize more quickly.