The Teddy Talker is an innovative tool designed to promote early articulation skills with the connection to print. Teddy Talker materials are specifically created to build an auditory, visual, tactile and kinesthetic process linking sound knowledge and production with literacy foundation skills in a fun-filled way. This assistive technology is useful for people with cognitive disabilities or for children who can benefit from additional programs to improve speech. Teddy Talker is a complete multi-sensory experience. Children directly involved in both showing and telling Teddy “how” to produce the sounds.
The Teddy Talker kits enable kids to actually construct the sounds by directly using manipulatives to represent the lips/teeth and tongue. Additional manipulatives represent key elements such as voicing, breath and nasal features. Through the simultaneous introduction of the printed letter, the child can also learn that a single letter can represent a corresponding phoneme.
The front of the Board and the Mouth Position Cards allow construction of sound based on looking at what is visible on Teddy’s mouth. The back of the Board allows a child to actually visualize what happens behind Teddy’s teeth, for an “inside” view! The poems embed cues for placement and provide child-friendly associations for each sound as the child learns more about Teddy and his wildlife friends!
Manipulatives are included to represent the lips/teeth and tongue and key elements such as voicing, breath and nasal features. Through the simultaneous introduction of the printed letter, the child can also learn about phoneme-grapheme correspondence.
- Mouth Position Cards with Reinforcement Rhymes promote articulation by helping the child visualize Teddy’s own production of sounds. Each phoneme has a corresponding rhyme that embeds the cues for phonetic placement, describing in simple terms what the articulators do during production. The child sees the corresponding grapheme while looking at Teddy’s mouth position for the phoneme. The Reinforcement Rhymes are uniquely created to promote the important skill of rhyming, an essential component of reading readiness while helping the child develop interesting associations for each sound.
- The 11” x 14” Alphabet Chart is dry-erase friendly and shows Teddy’s mouth as he gets ready to produce the sound for each letter.
- Foundation Kit includes the Teddy Board (front and back of bear), puppet tongue, felt articulators, felt cues pieces, speech bubble, Learning Letters, detailed instruction manual, and carry tote.
- Combo Pack includes the Teddy Board (front and back of bear), puppet tongue, felt articulators, felt cues pieces, speech bubble, Learning Letters, detailed instruction manual, and carry tote, plus Mouth Position cards and Reinforcement Rhyme cards.