10 ways to target K & G You may not have tried
Regardless of if you are a school-based SLP or an SLP in the private practice world, it’s likely you’ve had plenty of students with K/G goals.
Velar fronting (the phonological process of producing a velar sound as a more anterior sound) is a common speech error for children.
I tend to target K and G from a more phonological approach because I often find teaching these sounds this way provides positive impact for other errored speech sounds.
To target these sounds with a phonological approach, I start with auditory discrimination of both K/T and G/D, move on to using minimal pairs, then typically switch to a more traditional articulation approach and target each sound in your isolation —> conversation method.
Here are 10 ideas for targeting K and G. They are in no particular order. Some may be better to use at the beginning and some may be a little more complex. I’ll provide input for each idea as I share.
Name each sound and talk about what it looks and sounds like
Name the sounds and explain what the sound sounds like and looks like. Teach the student where their articulators should be for each sound. Using a mirror can help with placement as well. For example, I call /K/ the “angry cat sound” and explain that it is produced with an open mouth, tongue in the back, and voice off.
Discriminate sounds by pointing
The first concept I target is teaching auditory discrimination. The student will need to understand the difference between the target sound and the errored sound. In the case of K & G, it’s typically K/T and G/D. Write the two letters on a piece of paper. Have the student listen to you produce the sounds. Ask the student to point to which sound they hear. You can adjust the difficulty by producing the sound in isolation, syllables, or words.
Discriminate sounds by sorting
Once the student is able to point to the sound you are producing, it’s their turn to try. Using picture cards or something similar, provide the student with target sounds and errored sounds and ask them to sort them into piles. One pile will be the target sound and one pile will be the errored sound. This activity is still focusing on auditory discrimination.
Stand up / Sit Down
One more auditory discrimination task is to have the student stand up when they hear one sound and sit down when they hear another. My favorite speech activities ALWAYS include movement. I feel as though you can see the students’ faces light up when they get to leave their chair. You can change the difficulty of this activity by using sounds in isolation, syllables, or words. You can also increase the difficulty by increasing the speed at which you produce the sounds. That way they are sitting down and standing up quickly! It typically makes for a great learning experience and gets a few laughs.
Create a syllable wheel with child’s hand
Moving on to syllable level, you can create a syllable wheel with the student’s hand. Trace the student’s hand on a piece of paper. Imagine the middle of the hand as the middle of the wheel. Place the target sound in the middle. Then in the tips of all five fingers add vowels - A, E, I, O, U. Demonstrate to the student how you can practice CV syllables by moving your finger from the middle of the hand to a finger. For example, K + A = /ka/. Once that is mastered, demonstrate how to practice VC syllables by moving your finger from the tip of a finger to the middle of the hand. For example, A + K = /ak/.
Introduce Minimal Pairs
Once the student can discriminate between the target sound and the errored sound AND is producing the target sound in syllables, it’s a great time to introduce minimal pairs. Minimal pairs are two words that are the same except for one phoneme. The phoneme that differs is the target phoneme and the errored sound. For example, “bike” and “bite” are minimal pairs. A great first activity is to simply take turns saying these words and helping the student hear the difference between the words. The next few ideas for targeting K and G include using minimal pairs.
Sorting Minimal Pairs
Use sorting mats, buckets, bags, etc. to sort minimal pairs into the target sound and the errored sound. Take turns with the student for who says the word and who does the sorting.
Create Sentences with Minimal Pairs
Once the student has mastered the minimal pairs at the word level, it may be time to increase the difficulty. Work with the student to create sentences that include BOTH words in the minimal pair set.
Create a “tricky word list” for extra practice
It is likely that the student will have increased difficulty with words that include both k/t and/or g/d such as “dog”, “kite”, “goat”, etc. I create activities and word lists around these words to increase the opportunities to practice these tricky sounds. The word list can be created to meet the needs of your student. I recommend being open with the student that these words are trickier and will take more practice to master.
Find the sounds in story books
A great articulation activity for any sound really is to read a story that is known to have a lot of the target speech sound. For K and G, some of my favorites include Little Blue Truck Leads the Way, Go Dog Go, May I Please Have a Cookie, and Goodnight Moon. Once you read the story through, you can have your student recall words that had K or G, describe the pictures in the book, or retell the story. Any of these activities will allow for many opportunities to produce K and/or G.
There you have it! Check out this resource to target all of these ideas and more: Velar Fronting Packet: Articulation & Phonology K G Phonemes with Minimal Pairs
