Have you been over to mommyspeechtherapy.com? Have you seen the free worksheets Heidi offers for almost all the speech sounds? I’ve been printing these and sending them home for homework activities for years! I was also using them in therapy, but wanted a way to make them reusable. In addition, I needed something for my artic students to do in between turns. Enter my Mommy Speech Therapy Sound Folders.

Here’s how I’ve been using them. First, I printed the lot. It was a big job that took a long time. I printed two copies of the word level for each sound – one to use for word level treatment and the other to pair with the phrase/sentence level page.

Then, I laminated the pages and cut them out. I ordered Velcro dots from hookandloop.com. (don’t forget to purchase two rolls – both the hook and the loop). I added the dots to the phrase/sentence level pages and to one page of the words.

At first, I thought to store them in a 3-ring binder, but soon discovered that the Velcro dots added too much bulk. I would have needed a 4-5 inch binder to fit all the pages and then it wouldn’t have been a functional system. So, I decided to use a file folder system – one sound for each folder. I stored them in an open top file box that I found at The Container Store. I love these boxes by the way. I use them to store and organize a lot of different materials in my therapy room. I placed the cut cards for the phrase/sentence level pages in color coded bags for easy retrieval – green for initial positions, blue for medial position, and red for the final position.

Now I can grab a sound folder and hand the baggie to the student. They know to choose five words and place them on the Velcro. They read through the phrases/sentences and then replace the cards in the bag before choosing another set of words. While one student is replacing cards I can listen to their groupmate. This has been an amazing change for my preschool groups. They love the Velcro pictures and thrive on the independence they can exhibit by choosing the cards they want. They are also proud to “read” the phrases.

I hope you all will go over to mommyspeechtherapy.com and check out the resources and information Heidi has there. I send parents to her site often.