I don’t know about you, but I’m always trying to make my life – and job! – easier whenever I can. Today, I want to share another quick tip for articulation therapy. (See previous posts here and here.)
Take a moment to think about your typical articulation therapy sessions. How many times with each student do you have to remind them of proper placement for your target sound? Sometimes, it feels like it is every 30 seconds!
I frequently have students refer back to our articulation reminder posters, but sometimes that’s just not enough, especially for the /r/ sound.
One day, I watched one of my hardest working students struggle with an /r/ sound, but finally was able to self-correct after several tries. I asked him to tell me exactly what he had done differently to make the more correct /r/ sound, so I could remind him of that in the future. My student described what he was doing with his mouth and tongue, and it was so powerful to hear in his own words what he was doing! His description was different than mine, but it clearly made more sense to him than my own description.
I quickly realized that this was a teachable moment, so I grabbed my iPad, asked him to repeat his description, and started recording. Now, we’re able to watch that brief clip when we start each session, and every time he starts to struggle, we can watch it again.
What do you do to help students remember the correct placement for their target speech sounds?
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