When you are a speech language pathologist in the schools, you see A LOT of groups. It can be hard to keep students engaged in a group therapy setting. That’s why I’ve got 5 ideas for therapy groups that you can start implementing today!

Therapy in groups isn’t always ideal, but with super large caseloads we generally don’t have another option. I see 95% of my caseload in groups of 2-4 students. I’m sure the school district would like us to see more kids in each group, but Medicaid’s cap is 4 kids per group. I’ve made this list with this cap in mind. If you are pushing into a classroom or trying to manage a large group of kids, then things will be a bit different. Just reach out (via email or DM on Instagram) and we can brainstorm ideas together!

Without further ado, here are 5 ideas for therapy groups – specifically for speech therapy!

5 Ideas for Therapy Groups –

1. Play a Game All Together and Work During Turns

This is one of my go-to strategies for engagement. All the students play a game, and during each person’s turn they have to do their “work” such as saying their sound/words X amount of times, answering WH- questions, or providing synonyms for a given word. Whatever their goal is!

I believe that the key to making this successful is picking the right kind of game. Not just any game works! You need a game with quick turns. It needs to be simple, but engaging enough to hold interest. Don’t pick anything with lots of strategy or anything that would take away from the actual purpose of your therapy session – working on their goals!

Here is a list of some of my favorites –

• Jenga
• Pop the Pig
• Kerplunk
• Uno
• TOMY Pop Up Pirate

You might notice a similar theme with most of these. There is some sort of anticipation. Will the tower fall? When will the pirate / pig pop? My students LOVE this build up of suspense! The timing usually works out well for a 30 minute session too!

2. Worksheets or Paper Task Completed Together As a Group

The majority of my students with language goals also struggle tremendously with reading. Most can’t even read the directions on worksheets or what the questions are asking. I usually like to do the following schedule whenever we work on worksheets together –

• I read directions aloud
• We work on the first few all together; discussing the answers
• I set up little dividers between students
• I read the rest of the questions aloud as students answer independently
• I quickly grade their work (aka my data for the session)
• We remove the dividers and all go over the answers together; discussing trouble spots

This works best if students have overlapping goals. I typically pull students in groups based on their goals, so this is fairly easy for me. You can also use materials from their general education classroom and modify it to this type of schedule!

3. One-On-One Time While Others Work Independently

This is not my favorite option because most of my students get plenty of time in class to work independently and this is their chance to get direct help. But when your students have totally different goals, sometimes you might want to use this strategy. I also use it every quarter for progress monitoring. I do the iPad option (see below) so that the other students can put on headphones and not hear the student’s answers.

The students that are working independently can do a variety of things such as class work, Boom cards or Nearpods on an iPad or computer, or even a paper task. My students are used to working independently on a computer, so I like to have them do something on a device that takes their data (such as Boom cards on Boom Learning) or other various apps.

4. Use Paper Tasks that Allow for Coloring

Not all worksheets or paper tasks are created equally. Some have built in coloring sections which my students love! They can work on the task (such as saying their words) and when it isn’t their turn they can color the clip art pictures on the page.

I only recommend this for quick turns or when one student just needs a tiny bit more help per question. I like my students to be doing something more productive if it’s truly going to be independent time.

5. Group Activities

Ok let me explain what I mean. Sometimes I take my kids outside and we role play or do some dramatic play. Sometimes everyone gets some story cubes and they each get to come up with a story while working on their sound strategies or fluency strategies. I like to use building materials such as Legos or BrainFlakes to have them create something and then work on their descriptive language skills.

There are also plenty of TPT or Super Duper activities that are good for groups. You can use chipper chat or Granny’s Candies. There are so many options out there! Most of these work best for homogenous groups, but with a little tweaking I can make almost any goal work with this kind of activity!

were those ideas for therapy groups helpful?

Let me know in the comments below! You can also message me on Instagram at any time! I love hearing from you all!

for more therapy ideas check here to read about using the cycles approach to treat speech sound disorders!

-Chloe B | School SLP