Listening games for speech sound training

Bean bag game

Find 3 or 4 small boxes (eg shoeboxes) and place a sound card in front of each one. Say a sound and the child has to throw a bean bag into the correct box.

Tower game

Place 3 or 4 sound cards in front of the child. Give the child some building bricks. Say a sound and the child has to put a brick onto the correct sound. At the end of the activity the child can knock down the biggest tower!

To extend this to word level, say a word and the child puts a brick on the sound it starts/ends with.

Car game

Place sound cards on the floor. Say a sound and the child has to push the car onto the correct sound. Extend to word level by saying a word and asking the child to push the car onto the sound it starts/ends with.

Posting game

Use a glove puppet or a decorated box (with an animal face on) Lay the sound cards in front of the child, say a sound and the child has to find the correct card and post it. Extend to word level by using 2 posting boxes, each representing a sound. Say a word and the child posts the word card into the correct box eg. ‘sock’ post into the ‘s’ box)

Skittles

Place a sound card in front of each skittle, say the sound and the child knocks down the skittle.

Swotting

Place sound cards on the table, say a sound and the child has to swot the card with a fly swotter. You could put Velcro onto the pictures and swotter so you catch a card when you swot it!

Washing line game

Set up a washing line (see speaking games) say a sound and the child has to find the card and peg it onto the line.

Stepping stones game

Place sound cards on the floor, say a sound and the child has to hop/jump/crawl etc onto the correct card.

Barrier game

Have 2 sets of the same cards and a barrier to place between you. Say a sound card and place in front of you (so your partner can’t see it) They have to choose the card you said and put it in front of them. Do this with a number of cards then lift the barrier to see if your partner chose the right cards.