Do your students know how to ask adults and peers simple questions? Do they understand how to get to know someone by asking questions or carry on a back and forth conversation? Many speech therapy students struggle with expressive language skills and asking questions in particular. One of my favorite ways to work on these skills is teaching asking questions through games. All of the Amazon links listed are affiliate links and some of the games discussed are from my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.
Guess Who was one of my very favorite childhood games. Have you ever played it? It is a two player game so this is particularly great for any students that you see one on one for speech or language therapy. On each player’s game board, they have 24 different, silly looking people. You each pick a mystery person card and your job is to narrow down and guess the mystery person of your opponent before they guess yours. You do this by asking simple yes or no questions such as, “Are they wearing a hat?” “Do they have blonde hair?” If the answer is no, then they would place all of those people face down on their board and eliminate them. It is a great game for learning how to ask yes or no questions and also for looking at the smaller characteristics of people that students might sometimes miss. You could write the game script out for students while in speech and refer back to it when teaching how to ask a question.
Cariboo is my absolute favorite game to play with preschoolers for speech therapy. It is actually no longer made so if you see it at Goodwill, you should snatch it up! Amazon wants to charge about $180 for it! The object of the game is to find all of the hidden balls. To find the balls you open the doors on the game with the key. Keep the balls in the shoot on the right hand side. Once you collect all of the balls, the treasure box opens. The kids LOVE this one because it involves hidden bouncy balls. I love this one because it’s so motivating, a great way to withhold to entice language, and easily modified to fit therapy. The cards slide into the slots on the top of each door. You can have students ask questions about which object the balls are under. For example, “Is the ball under the pencil?” This is a great way to get them to name target vocabulary as well!
Who Am I (School Staff) is a game solely created for students receiving speech and language services. Print the pictures and questions on cardstock and laminate for durability. The student will then hold the player card that they picked up to their face and ask questions about the player card as if they are that person. For example, since these are all people that are part of the school setting, they might ask, “Do I sing everyday?” or “Do I work in the office?” The students will then use these clues to narrow down who is on their card. You can write question ideas down for them to refer to as a visual to help them when it is their turn. This is perfect for teaching WHO questions.
Go Fish is always a great game to play in therapy. It is simple and works on so many skills- turn taking, color or number identification, listening skills and asking questions. The object of the game is to get as many matches as you can and be out of cards first. In order to get your matches, you must ask other players if they have what you need. When it is your turn, you might ask, “ Mrs. Kirk, do you have a 2?” If they have it, they MUST give it to you to make you a match. If they do not have what you asked for, then they respond-” No I don’t! Go fish!” This game is a definite favorite for working on so many language skills in my therapy sessions. I like to do lots of modeling when asking questions to prepare students for this game. This game is helpful because it asks a repetitive question. Repeating questions can give our students structure and extra practice. When teaching asking questions,
Lids and Lizards is a really fun game to play in speech therapy! This game typically works on auditory and visual memorization skills. Game play is easy. Kids turn over lids that have photos hidden underneath. Then they name the object in the photo, describe it, and tell where you find it. Some lids have lizards underneath them. Whoever uncovers the most lizards wins. Sometimes I change up the directions if I want to target an answering questions goal with some of my students. I will have them ask a yes or no question about what might be under the lid. For example- if an apple is under the lid (but they wouldn’t know this) they could ask questions to help them figure this out such as, “Is it red?” or “Can you eat it?” Then, this can eventually lead them to asking, “Is it an apple?” Kids love to be surprised when they find a lizard under their lid! I always have questions laid out for students to choose from to help them think of what questions to ask in this game. The more we play, the better they become at asking the questions without the prompts!
What are your favorite things to use in speech therapy for teaching asking questions through games?
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