Circle Time Lesson Plans for Phonological Processes

Walk into any great teacher’s circle time and you’ll likely notice a few things that make them great. (1) Routine. Kids thrive with predictability. Using a circle time that is predictable increases their success and set the expectation. (2) Engaging materials. Let’s face it, you’ve got to be engaging. You have to draw those bodies in and get them excited about your work.  That’s it! (Okay, that’s far from it, but those are the biggies in my opinion.)

When I plan a phonology lesson, I use the same outline each time. This allows my students to know what’s coming next! Here’s my outline:

1. Introduction of the SLP
2. Explanation of the Learning Target
3. Youtube Video For Targeted Sound
4. Minimal Pairs Review
5. Interactive Game for Repeated Practice

The objective of my circle time lesson is to introduce a phonology pattern/rule to all the students in my class, model the clues/supports and eliciting strategies for staff, and give repeated practice to my IEP students in a large group setting.

When designing the material, I want to focus on activities that engage but don’t take over. I still want the attention to be on the phonology rule. I do my lesson on a SMARTBoard. This let’s me make it super interactive!

Let me give you an example run-down of how I run a circle! This is a farm-themed Final Consonant Deletion lesson.

 

When you create an activity, it doesn’t need to be rocket science! In this game, the students use the SMARTBoard eraser to erase the black portion of the barn doors and discover an animal (with a simple CVC word structure) and then practice saying that word. We talk about what the word would be if they omitted the final sound and why that’s silly. We get lots of practice.

You can create your own resources similar to this lesson plan for the specific needs of your students. If you’re working with phonology development, I’ve created six different lessons that you can download in my shop. The amount of planning it will save you is huge! You’ll need a SMART Notebook program and a SMARTBoard to utilize these resources.

Each set includes the SLP script that shows you what I would say during my group time. Here’s an example of that

As you can see, my language is simple and direct. After your group time, you can send a note home to all students. I use a half-sheet of paper like the one below.  

Each set includes both a script and a note home. Just sign your name at the bottom and you’re good to go!

Check out the bundle in my store. You can click on each link to purchase the lessons individually as well.

You might also be interested in my blog post about 3 types of circle times for speech therapy.