Dramatic play naturally promotes language among students, and therefore is an important activity for students with speech delays. Use props to construct an environment where children interact with one another. Choose a variety of props related to your current theme of teaching and place them in the play area. For example, if you teaching about food items, place props such as grocery bags, plastic food toys or any other items you find at the grocery store. These props encourage students to role play about an experience in the store and leads to a variety of opportunities to practice speech, vocabulary and other communication skills.
Provide children with access digital camera and assign them the task of taking photos of objects around the classroom. Allow them to choose their own objects to photograph. Print every child's photos out and glue each image to its own blank note card. On the other side of the note card, write the word of the object using a black marker. Laminate these note cards and give them to your students. Ask them to read and practice saying these common classroom objects on a daily basis. This helps students with speech delays practice saying important vocabulary they will encounter in their classroom environment.
Choose a script appropriate for the age of your students. Assign roles for various characters. If there are more students than parts, allow these children to assume the role of director, stage manager or costume designer. Assign children with speech delays speaking parts within the script, but choose parts that are appropriate for their ability levels. This activity allows those students a chance to speak in front of a group with rehearsed lines and provides them a level of confidence not otherwise possible when speaking an in impromptu scenario.
Put on a puppet show and create your own finger puppets. Allow your children to choose their favorite piece of children's literature to retell in the form of a finger puppet show. Create puppets using small drawings of the characters. Glue popsicle sticks to the back of the characters. Ask students to retell their chosen stories using the puppets they created. This activity encourages children to speak but, because they are choosing how to retell the story, naturally allows them to use words at a level that is developmentally appropriate.