3 Speech Skills To Practice With MagnaTiles
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One of my first internships during my speech therapy grad school program was at a preschool. It was there that I discovered the joys of MagnaTiles.
These - mostly square and triangular - building tiles have magnets along the sides that allow you to make 2 or 3 dimensional creations. They're fun, colorful, and provide opportunities for open-ended play that are perfect for practicing speech.
Let's talk about 3 speech skills that are a great fit for this toy.
P.S. While the MagnaTiles brand is the original (and the name I typically use to refer to any magnetic tile toy), there are plenty of alternative brands, including the much more affordable PicassoTiles.
1. Turn-Taking
Toys with lots of pieces are great for practicing turn-taking. For this activity, you're going to build something with your child.
Instead of dumping out all the pieces, keep them in their box - or better yet, a slightly larger bin so it's easier to dig around and see all the pieces.
Then, you and your child can take turns picking a piece and adding it to your tower (or whatever you've decided to make).
Two Variations
Turn-taking can be a challenging skills on it's own, but some kids will also struggle with the cooperative play skills needed to build something together. If that's the case, here are a couple variations you can try, which still allow you to work on turn-taking:
1. Take turns picking a piece for your child to put on their tower.
2. Take turns picking pieces to each put on your own tower.
If needed, you can keep the box of pieces in your lap or out of your child's reach in between turns to help them gain success with the task if they're not able to do it independently.
If this is your speech goal and you're tracking progress, keep count of how many times you can go back and forth before your child tries to take a turn that isn't theirs.
2. Expanding Phrases
If your child is talking but uses one word at a time or only speaks with short phrases, this activity is perfect for you.
Plus, this is without a doubt the easiest of the activities (for you and your child).
All you need to do is play and talk with your child while you build.
Then, when your child says something, you're going to expand it. This means you're going to repeat what they said and add one or two additional words.
So if your child says "more", you could respond with "more tiles".
Or if your child says "red", you could say "yes, it's a red square".
If your child says "it's big", you could say "it's a big tower".
This is a great activity for a couple of reasons.
First, it's absolutely no pressure on your child. They don't need to know they're practicing speech. There's no reason for them to think this is anything other than just play.
Second, it's very functional. The speech you're using is just slightly more advanced than what your child can do on their own. And it allows them to hear additional words they could use during an activity they enjoy and will be repeating.
If you repeat this enough times, you should start to notice your child using additional words that you've modeled for them during the activity.
3. Articulation
Sometimes, when you're working on articulation, you need a break from board games and flash cards.
And sometimes (especially for younger kids), you need to find ways to practice during whatever activity they feel like doing at that moment.
It takes a little more effort on your part, but this is a great activity to help you get started with a less-structured approach to articulation therapy.
Let's talk about 3 different ways you could practice articulation with this activity.
Enhanced Tiles
This one takes some prep work. But once you're done, it's very easy to practice while you play.
If your child can read, put a piece of tape on each tile, and write a word with your child's target sound on top of the tape (if you want, you can put another piece of tape over the writing to make sure it doesn't smudge).
If your child isn't reading yet, print off some picture cards (you may need to shrink them down in the print settings so they're small enough) and tape a picture to each tile.
Then, as you play, have your child practice the word that's on each tile they add to their creation.
Highlighted Sounds
This one is no-prep, but it requires a lot more concentration and effort on your part throughout the activity.
As your child is building, talk about what they're doing - what they're building, what pieces they're using, what those pieces look like, etc.
And when they (or you) say a word that has their target sound, repeat it and emphasize the sound.
Usually you'll want them to repeat the word and practice the sound too, but depending on how frequently it comes up, you don't need to do that every time.
Hearing the target sound repeated over and over again is a strategy called auditory bombardment. While you can't use that exclusively to help your child learn sounds, it can support their awareness of the sound and their overall articulation development.
This task will be easier if your child is working on certain sounds like R or L that will be more natural to use when talking about the activity (red, green, tower, square, triangle, tall, yellow).
But you'll be surprised how many other sounds come up when you start listening for them.
For this variation of the activity, it might also be helpful to use a themed set - like the construction truck set, princess castle, space set, or farm animal set - that includes more of the sound you're looking for.
Pieces Per Word
This is the simplest of the options and involves taking advantage of the ability to make MagnaTiles a turn-based activity.
Give your child a certain number of tiles (I usually do 3) and let them put the pieces together.
Then practice a word.
After you've practiced the word, give them more pieces.
And repeat.
It really can be as simple as that.
Tried one of these activities? Head over to our Facebook group and let us know how it went!
If you're looking for more fun ways to practice speech at home, check at our 30 Days of Speech course.
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Hi, I'm Emily
Founder of Moms Teach Speech
Emily helps parents who have kids with speech delays support their children's development with a holistic, functional, family-centered approach. She shares strategies, activities, tools, and resources so you can practice speech at home just like a professional therapist would.
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