6 Articulation Activities Your Gifted Students Will Actually Love
While working with gifted students certainly makes some parts of therapy easier, it also presents new challenges. In particular, I have found that gifted students not only do well with challenges – they absolutely need them in order to stay motivated and to keep behaviors to a minimum. They can be quick to bore with drill and articulation cards (you know the ones!), and look for new activities almost every session.
I also find that sometimes my most gifted students are often the ones who have the hardest time hearing (and applying) feedback.
They have been successful at things they’ve tried their whole lives and coming to speech and working on their sound may be one of the first times that something hasn’t come easily to them.
This may come through as defensiveness, and sometimes I see it come through as feigned (or very real) disinterest. Either way, like most students, I get better results when I recognize and play into their strengths. I also add in a lot of growth mindset, but that’s a blog for another day.
With a large portion of my caseload functioning above grade level, over the years I have developed and curated a library of resources that provide these students with true challenges. They allow the students to stay motivated and also distract from any negativity they may feel coming from feedback.
1. Logic Problems
Logic problems are the ultimate brain puzzles where students use deductive reasoning to solve puzzles. In these articulation puzzles, the clues and answers are sound-loaded so students have multiple opportunities to practice their sounds at the word and sentence levels.
2. Tangrams
Perfect for your students who love a visual-spatial challenge, these articulation tangram puzzles ask students to arrange a series of shapes in a puzzle to create a picture. Each shape covers up a word with its sound and they can practice throughout the task. In or out of the classroom… Tangrams are activities your gifted students will love.
3. Articulation Patterns
Puzzles are not just for your older students. These articulation patterns range in complexity and are also available for those younger students who may be working on earlier sounds like K and G or who have phonology goals.
4. Secret Codes
In this activity your gifted students will love: Secret Codes, students will use a simple substitution code to solve single words. In more difficult versions of these puzzles, the code may not be provided in full. Students will have to look at features like word length, double letters, etc., to solve the code. In simpler versions, the code may be provided and the students just need to use it to solve the words.
5. Cryptograms
Similar to secret codes, in cryptograms, students will use a substitution code to solve words. However, this time, the puzzles consist of sentences or longer pieces of text. Students will need to use context and word knowledge to help them solve the puzzle.
6. Silly/Obscure Holiday Non-Fiction Passages
Well, now you can. I bet even your most gifted students didn’t know that July 2nd was World UFO Day. The best part about these passages is that they’re geared to both articulation and language. They even have questions that incorporate social skills.
AND THE SECRET WEAPON…Growth Mindset
Gifted students can be so fun to work with – but, like any other students, they have their own unique challenges. Just having activities your gifted students will love sometimes are not enough. Sometimes we need to work on their ability to accept mistakes, listen to feedback, and be okay with slow and steady progress.
You can find my favorite growth mindset resources designed just for speech therapy here.
