How To Keep Preschoolers Engaged in Speech Therapy Group

If you’re a preschool speech-language pathologist trying to run whole group speech therapy sessions, you know it can be…chaotic. Let’s acknowledge that the struggle is real. Attention spans are short. It’s not easy targeting mixed goals in mixed groups. And you probably feel a lot of pressure to keep things looking peaceful and organized. The secret? Smarter structure. A predictable routine with the right elements can be the difference between calm and chaos. Let’s dig into running whole groups during preschool speech therapy sessions. This is your speech therapy group get-started guide.

Predictable Routines in Preschool Speech Therapy Group

It’s so important to create a routine that your students can predict.

This helps with behavior and increases participation.

For example, you may always want to start your speech therapy group with greetings, then follow that up with a story.

Whatever you do, you’ll want to do it the same way every time.

I’ve found that using a visual schedule helps increase participation in my whole groups.

That’s why I love presenting speech group slides with an embedded visual schedule. I don’t even need to think about it: it’s ready to go for me.

Keep Segments Short in Your Preschool Speech Therapy Group

I like to keep each “area”, or segment, that I address in speech groups to around 3-5 minutes.

We spend about 3-5 minutes on greetings.

My students will come up to the board and select how they’d like to be greeted that day, then we all greet them in that manner.

Next, we’ll spend about 5 minutes (sometimes, this activity might take a little longer) reading our story.

After that, we do a “find the item” activity.

We follow it up with short movement videos.

Those frequent transitions maintain novelty and excitement.

Built-in Participation for Preschool Speech Groups

Here’s the key: your preschool speech therapy students will probably disengage if they’re expected to sit there passively.

That’s why I like to add lots of opportunities for my students to participate.

I pass out the items that the character in our story will “eat”- and they get to take turns “feeding” the character.

When we do our “find the item” slides, we present them on a whiteboard. They love to use a dry-erase marker to circle the items. We even have a special helper who erases the circles before moving on to the next slide.

Whatever you do, add in opportunities for your students to take turns completing a task- no matter how small the task is.

Adding Movement Adds Magic to a Speech Therapy Group

I love using movement in speech therapy.

It’s the little things that really add to the magic.

Movement helps regulation and focus- plus, it’s just fun.

I always include 3 simple, 20-second movement-based videos in my “speech group presentations”.

My students love to gather around and try to act out the movements.

I like to keep the movement opportunities simple and fun.

Stories Help Address Multiple Speech Therapy Objectives

You probably know I love using children’s books in speech therapy.

Stories offer so many opportunities to address multiple language objectives.

We can work on answering wh-questions, vocabulary, inferencing, predicting, and more.

Reduce Prep and Reduce Stress in Your Speech Therapy Group

When I’m running a mixed group, I need easy-to-use materials that aren’t too complex to figure out on the fly.

I’m trying to manage a group of preschoolers, after all.

That’s why I love using my Google Slides Whole Group Lessons that offer a built-in routine and visual schedule with simple tap ‘n go slides.

I rely on my organized framework to help my speech group session run smoothly.

Summary

In conclusion, running mixed groups and whole group speech therapy sessions doesn’t have to be stressful.

It’s about doing the right things in the right order.

Stick to what works, and do the same routine every session.

If you want a ready-made, whole group lesson with a built-in visual schedule, story, interactive activities, greetings, and short movement videos to keep your preschool speech therapy students engaged, check out the Speech Group Bundle.