You might realize by now that Jen and I share a love for targeting language and literacy in our therapy sessions! I wanted to share my favorite new tool that I use to target speech, language, and literacy- the Bjorem Speech Sound Cues . I am not joking when I say I use these cards EVERY SINGLE DAY! There are so many different ways to cue our children in sessions but I find that these cards are simple and memorable. I use them for children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech, Articulation Disorders, Language Disorders, and early literacy.
Set up
The box is divided into three sections; purple which has vowels, yellow which has early developing phonemes, and blue which has later developing phonemes. My patients LOVED helping me sort through the box to find their cards (pre-covid).
Speech
My favorite cue card in this whole box is the “tick tock” /t/ sound. Are you even a Speech-Pathologist if you don’t have a favorite cue card? I love to tap the card simultaneously with the ticking clock in my office to teach /t/. Another fun one is the “popcorn” sound that says /p/. I remind children to “make popcorn with your lips” as I point to the cue card. With the introduction of a sound or pattern, I start teaching using my cue cards and then fade the cue as the child progresses towards independence. For some reason these cards really “click” with my patients.
Literacy
The deck includes 12 vowel cards which are great for targeting early decoding and encoding.
- Short a- ‘cat’ monster image
- short e- “bet”- what? image
- Short i- “hit”- icky goo image
- Short o- “pop”- open mouth image
- Short u- “up”- hot air balloon image
- Long a- “ate”- tropical bird image
- Long e- “eat”- eating E image
- Long i- “kite”- big eye image
- Long o- “toe”- o lady image
- Long u- “tube”- monkey image
- OW- “ouch”- hurt thumb image
- OY- “boy”- pig sound image
When working through decoding simple CvC words, I choose the vowel and and then randomly pair with consonant cue cards to make silly nonsense words. Children find it SO funny to decode words that may or may not make sense. For early readers, I might pair the cards with simple CvC rhyme and read books such as “Pat the Cat”. When I teach spelling, I target one spelling pattern i.e. “short a” at a time. My patients create a spelling notebook that we add to every week. They enjoy spelling as many words as possible with a certain vowel.
Language
For language tasks I throw all my cards in a bucket and have the child select one at a time to target. With these simple pictures you can target describing, grouping, pronouns, verbs, plurals, and functions. We can also target the written form and write a silly sentence with the picture card that was selected. The are endless ways to use these cards in sessions!
If you have been tasked with buying new materials at work or you just need something to spice up your sessions, I could not recommend these cue cards more. I have her lateralization and prosody cards on my birthday list so be on the lookout for future reviews *husband hint*. If you use Bjorem cards in your sessions please let us know how you use them! You can comment here or reach out on Instagram. After all, every SLP has a favorite cue, right?