Picture cards are a phenomenal therapy tool. Dawn uses them quite a bit during her speech sessions. Today Cali was working on describing pictures. For a long time Cali has had the tendency of describing a picture using only colors. Dawn would show a picture of a cat and say, “Tell me two things about this cat.” Cali would automatically give the colors of the cat and nothing more. Or maybe she might give another description besides color, but only with the help of Dawn.
When Dawn pulled out the picture cards to work again on describing, I was shocked to hear Cali’s descriptions. This time they made their work into a game. Dawn would hold out two cards in her hands and Cali would then pick one of the two. Once the card was picked, Cali had to give two descriptions of the picture. If she could did it correctly she got a point, if not, the point went to Dawn.
One of Cali’s picks happens to show a picture of a nest. This was her description:
1. “A bird lives in it.”
2. “It’s in a tree.”
WAY TO GO CALI!!! I love being present for moments like these. So special.
Dawn uses picture cards from different resources, but one resource she uses to purchase exceptional cards is from Stages Learning. The product she brought today was the Language Builder Picture Noun Cards. It’s actually quite expensive, but it comes with 350 full-color noun cards. Also in the set are custom stickers and dividers for organizing. On the back of each card you will find an easy-to-use system for tracking your child’s progress (you can find out more about tracking here).
If the price is too exorbitant, the site also provides many different noun picture card sets for $9.99. These, however, do not have the tracking system on the back of the cards.
Picture cards can also be used for (some ideas taken from Stages Learning Site):
- Receptive language (“show me”, “give me”)
- Expressive Language (“what is it?”)
- Sorting by category
- Working on Wh ?’s (I.e., “What do you do at the park?”, “Why do you wear a jacket?”…the picture will prompt the question)
- Matching Similar Cards
- Teaching Adjectives
- Teaching Storytelling
- Teaching Functions
