Literacy Activities

Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) are uniquely qualified to support literacy because they understand the language foundations—phonology, syntax, and semantics—required for reading and writing. By aligning therapy with classroom needs and using consistent language (like the "5 W's"), SLPs help generalize skills across settings. 

Some Core Literacy Strategies in Speech Therapy 

• Phonological & Phonemic Awareness: 

  • Rhyming Games: Read rhyming books and have child identify or generate rhyming words. 

    • ACTIVITIES: write down the ending of a simple word on a whiteboard (-un, -an, -in, -eb, -en, etc) and use a different color marker to place in front, use the alphabet as a visual and replace the beginning sound with different letters and show your child how a rhyming word is just replacing the beginning sound and the ending sound stays the same (some spelling might looking different like “fox”/”socks” 

    • Books: Dr Suess (green eggs and ham, there’s a wocket in my pocket, hop on pop) 

    • Youtube rap: rhyming words (youtube: Dr Gaston Woodland), sing along with your child, pause the video after some rhyming words and come up with more with your child after the examples provided, say the words in the same intonation as the video

  • Sound Discrimination: Use physical objects (e.g.,beads, blocks, puff balls, magnet tiles, leggos) to represent each sound in a word. Moving beads while saying sounds helps students connect speech to print. 

    • ACTIVITES: write a word on a white board with spacing in between each letter, put the block, ball, etc. under each letter to provide a visual that each letter has a sound. Touch the object as you move from sound to sound. Another option is writing letters on magnet tiles and moving them around to create different words. This can also be done with paper 

  • Syllable Clapping: Engage in games that involve clapping out syllables to strengthen sound structure awareness. 

    • ACTIVITIES: using a bin or container of random items that have different syllables (potato, glasses, pot, ball, unicorn) pull out each item and identify the syllables while clapping it out with your child 

• Shared Reading & Narrative Skills: 

  • Dialogic Reading: Use interactive questioning or modeling to discuss story elements (Who, What, Where, Why, How). 

  • Modeling over Testing: Instead of asking "What letter is that?", model by saying "I see a 'J'" to reduce pressure and foster a love of reading. 

    • ACTIVITIES: magnet letters or felt letters mixed with other toys or by themselves hidden in eggs, cups, critter clinic, kinetic sand, etc. Find the letters and talk about what letter you found and the sound it makes

Author: Amber Drew, C-SLPA