Summer Speech Therapy Activity for Grammar

This summer speech therapy activity is FREE and provides a really fun way to work on basic grammar in speech and language!

Throughout the school year, I focused quite a bit on basic grammar goals with my elementary speech and language students in grades 2-4. Many of my second graders especially needed help understanding how to pronounce regular past tense verb endings. I wanted to provide them a way to continue working on these skills over the summer, so I crated this summer speech therapy activity that targets basic grammar skills. 

Grammar can actually be fun to work on in speech therapy (at least in my opinion), but it really helps to have a game plan. In this post, I’ll discuss some of the ways I teach past tense verbs in speech therapy, and I’ll also share exactly how you could use this free summer speech therapy activity (which is based on my Regular Past Tense Verbs resource on TpT).

How To Set Up Your Grammar Activity

This is a really easy activity to set up. You’ll just print out the task cards (you can choose between low ink or color ink options- and I’ve also provided a text-only option for older students). You’ll also want to print out the sorting mat.

I suggest laminating the task cards for repeated use, but that is up to you. You also could laminate the sorting mat, or stick it in a sheet protector.

How To Use Your Summer Speech Activity

Once all of the cards are cut out and ready to go, it’s really easy to use.

You will give your student a card, and he or she will choose which past tense suffix ending (-d or -ed) that would be added to the base verb in order to make the verb past tense.

After your student has sorted the card to the correct past tense suffix, then he can practice pronouncing the past tense form of the verb. In the next section, I’ll explain how I teach the rules for pronouncing regular past tense verbs.

How to Pronounce Regular Past Tense Verb Endings

Here are the rules that I explain to my students:

✅ when the base verb ends in a VOICELESS sound, -ed or -d sounds like /t/ (for example, talkED)

✅ when the base verbs ends in a VOWEL/ VOICED sound, -ed or -d sounds like /d/ (for example, playED)

✅ when the base verb ends in /t/ or /d/, -ed or -d adds a syllable and sounds like ID (for example, paintED)

I also created this YouTube video which explains in detail how to teach past tense verbs in speech therapy.

I hope you find this summer speech therapy activity useful, and don’t forget to check out my Regular Past Tense Verbs Program on TpT!