Top Speech Therapy Materials for Bilingual Learners
One question I am asked frequently as a bilingual speech language pathologist is what materials I recommend to support language development. Here are a few of my favorites for language learners with typical OR atypical language development.
Bilingual Books
Great for: Early literacy skills, print awareness, picture labeling, vocab development, attention span
Having books available with the text in both languages it great for saving space, and not having to double up on materials. Choose one target language per sitting or read it twice through, once in each language! Here’s a few of my faves –
Farm Set
Great for: CV (consonant – vowel) sounds, object labeling, songs
Fun fact – Animals sounds differ from language to language! For example, the English dog says “woof woof” but a Spanish dog says “guau guau!” But one thing they have in common, they tend to be fairly simple sounds and easy for early speech learners mastering single phonemes in any language. There’s also many songs about farm animals – in English we have Old MacDonald, 5 little ducks, B-I-N-G-O. Some of my favorites in Spanish are La Vaca Lola, Los Pollitos, and Bartolito!
https://amzn.to/4ekOTwi
Piggy Bank
Great For – colors, numbers, prepositions, imitating actions
My script with toy would sound something like this: “Blue. In! Put in. Put blue IN. in-in-in – YAY! Open. Take out. Blue Out. Take blue out. Out-out-out!” Depending on the level of the child, I would model the action, or help them through it. Simple, short repetitive phrases in context targeting many language concepts and in a fun and engaging way for kids.
Mr Potato Head – Señor Cara de Papa
Great for: body parts, emotions, prepositions.
Major body parts are one of the early developmental concepts we look for in any language and this is a fun, concrete way to practice those. Once we’ve completed a Potato, I also love adding in status/emotion concepts – happy/sad, hungry/thirsty, sleepy/awake.
Princess Castle
Great for: Story retell, daily routines, prepositions.
Fairytales have shown their ability to stand the test of time! There are many stories that we remember from our childhood that kids today will also be familiar with. Pair with pictures, books, or movie clips and then re-enact with the manipulatives to foster early story retell skills. Or use pretend play to work on vocab for daily routines.
https://amzn.to/4ekkazr
Play house
Great for – family members, daily routines, prepositions, verbs
This is my go-to for modeling pretend play and targeting familiar, daily routine vocab. Words used around the home, associated with family or daily routines are something that are very functional in day to day. As much as I love jungle animals or race cars, home vocab is going to be the most useful which is why I try to prioritize as much as possible.
Verb Flashcards
Great for: Verb tenses, picture descriptions, matching
I love a good set of picture cards and this one of my favorites – you can work on pronouns, verbs, present progressive, sentences. There’s also 2 of each picture so you can play games like memory matching or go fish. Useful for any language!
https://amzn.to/3ZRmqIz
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