“Carryover is a client’s ability to take an individual speech skill learned in the therapy room and to apply it broadly in all speaking situations.”
– Pam Marshalla
What is Speech Carryover?
Most people imagine speech therapists working with students at the word level with flash cards or word lists. Focused practice at the word level is important in the beginning but we don’t want our students to stop there. It is crucial to begin the process of carryover as soon as the child can consistently produce their targeted sound in single words. This means moving on to practicing speech sounds and strategies in phrases, sentences, and conversation. You can even take therapy outside of the speech room and into the classroom or outside. In Pam Marshalla’s 2010 book “Carryover Techniques in Articulation and Phonological Therapy,” she defines the term carryover as “a client’s ability to take an individual speech skill learned in the therapy room and to apply it broadly in all speaking situations.” This is a summary of some of my favorite speech carryover activities.
Games!
Games can be a fun and effective way to practice speech sounds at the phrase or sentence level. Board games (Guess Who, Cariboo) and card games (Go Fish, Memory) are always a hit. When we play memory, I like having my students make a sentence with the two words that they find (even when they don’t match). They have a blast making silly sentences with with their speech words! My favorite games are word games like Headbands or I Spy with mixed groups because we can practice speech AND language skills. See this Guessing Game Blog post for more information about my favorite guessing games!
Reading Aloud
Reading aloud is a natural step in between word productions and conversational speech. Your articulation students can read short passages or task cards for your mixed groups. You can also find sound loaded reading passages on TPT like these from Communication Window. Reading will naturally slow them down and they will pay more attention to the letter sounds that they are saying. If necessary, you can highlight targeted speech sounds for them with a highlighter (or highlighter tape). Reading is also a great way to practice saying common words that we forget to practice like “there”, “the”, “this”, and “that”.
Conversation Starters
Most speech language pathologists have quite a collection of Conversation Starters (i.e., Icebreakers). Icebreakers are ideal for practicing social language skills but they are also useful for practicing speech strategies at the conversation level. You can carefully select icebreakers that feature your students’ sounds (e.g., “Would you Rather” is perfect for R and TH students). You can also find sound loaded icebreakers like this This or That? Articulation Carryover Activity. See this Conversation Starters blog post to learn about my favorite icebreakers! Also, don’t miss these FREE conversation starters task cards when you sign up for the Pinwheel Speech Community!
Busy Picture Scenes
One of my favorite speech carryover activities is to use busy picture scenes. These scenes are ideal for collecting spontaneous speech/language samples. Please see my Busy Picture Scene Blog Post for more information about how I use busy picture scenes. You can also try out a free set of Spring Busy Picture Scenes when you join the Pinwheel Speech Community.
If you are looking for more picture scenes (Boom Cards and Printable scenes), you can find a variety of Busy Picture Scenes in the Pinwheel Speech Store:
Language Activities
Finally, I love using language activities to practice speech carryover skills. This is the perfect solution when you have mixed speech and language groups. You can have your articulation students compare and contrast two items, retell events in a story, answer questions, or sequence tasks (Tell me How…). My older students (4th-6th graders) especially enjoy discussing their opinions on hot topics. A favorite activity to practice persuasive speaking is In Your Opinion. It’s amazing how much talking they will do when we practice stating our opinions.
Thank you!
As always, I wanted to say, “Thank you” for visiting my little corner of the internet! I hope you learned some new speech carryover ideas for your small groups. Please comment below to let me know how you encourage speech carryover skills!
