Do you think that, once your speech therapy students are in high school, your days of working on phonological skills are behind you? If so, you’re not alone, because I certainly did for awhile! Despite the fact that many older students who are still in speech therapy have significant reading deficits, there’s a tendency to have moved past phonological awareness by the time they enter middle school.
In a lot of ways, I get it. We never have what feels like enough time in school-based services to hit all the areas we need to, and proper phonemic awareness instruction has often felt like a thing that required a lot of time to be effective.
Not necessarily so, though!
Research is increasingly showing that some of our long-held beliefs about phonological awareness are flawed. Namely, that effective phonological awareness intervention requires a lot of time and that older students don’t benefit.
Phonological awareness started making its way back into my purview over the last few years because of a trend I was noticing when administering the Synonyms subtest on the CASL. Perhaps it seems unrelated? But, what I increasingly noticed was how many of my students had a difficult time holding all five words in their memory. And usually, the deficit was phonological. Sometimes, the student would repeat the words out loud while they were thinking and a word they said would have sounds reversed or would start with a different letter than the actual word. Sometimes, they would provide an answer that was almost one of the answer choices, but not quite.
I was writing “phonological memory” in the margins of my protocols, quite a lot!
And so, I started to research phonological memory. And that brought me right back to working on phonological and phonemic awareness skills.
Now, if your caseloads are like mine, phonological skills are one of many areas of concern, and not often the most significant seeming. So, how do you work it in, especially if it’s not explicitly an IEP goal? I have a few ideas!
But first, a few general tips:
- Use one of the many available progression of phonological skills graphics to choose specific skills.
- It’s best to focus on only one or two skills at a time.
- Blending and segmenting seem to be the most important for reading skills, so that might be the best thing to focus on if you’re short on time.
- Unlike we previously thought, it might actually be a good idea to incorporate letters/orthography, as long as your student has a decent letter knowledge.
- This website is a good, functional tool for teletherapists.
- If phonological skills are a more significant need for your student, I’d forego the following ideas and use a more structured program or intervention protocol.
1.Phonological Warm Ups Using Target Words
Before you get started on your main activity for the day, choose 5 to 10 important words. They could be your vocabulary days, key words from the story/text, or articulation targets. Whatever you’ve got! Spend a few minutes using these words to practice a couple of different skills.
2. Add Phonological Drills to the Activity
Think about phonemic cues here. If students are answering questions, use phonemic cues of a variety of types (starts with, ends with, rhymes with, words to blend, etc…). Or, after a lesson, have them sort words by a couple of different skills (which answers have more than two syllables, which answers start with a p or b sound, etc…). Make it a natural part of or a playful follow up to your main activity.
3. Go Nostalgic with Picture Books as Your Story Source
If you’re working with stories, why not use a picture book? There are actually many good reasons to use picture books with older students (I’ve got a post on it coming soon, in fact!). Add to that, picture books have a tendency to be filled with alliteration and rhymes. They also have surprisingly complex vocabularies at times, which could be great for practicing blending and segmenting skills after the natural auditory bombardment of reading aloud.
4. …. or if you want to stay grade-level, bring in poetry.
I don’t often see poems used as comprehension materials, but there’s no reason not to include them! Poetry is probably the best way to expose students to the rhythm of language, as it also naturally includes great auditory bombardment opportunities and unfamiliar words. Read the poems aloud and then play with some of the words afterward.
Whether you use a picture book or poem, carry on with vocabulary and comprehension targets afterward.
5. Introduce Phonological Components Analysis
If your students struggle with both vocabulary and phonology skills, PCA might be a great strategy for them to practice! Similar to Semantic Feature Analysis, PCA is an evidence-based way to improve word retrieval skills using phonological skills. Students practice retrieving words by identifying initial and final sounds, rhymes, and syllables. I have a unit here with 85 words students can practice and a blank template to create your own. Like phonological warm ups, completing one of two rounds of PCA is a quick, effective strategy that can fit into most sessions.
Hopefully, these ideas will help you get a few minutes of phonological interventions into your busy therapy sessions without adding too much more stress to your day. Let me know how it goes, and if you have any other quick and easy intervention ideas, please share!
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