Conducting speech therapy in a classroom setting can be a bit of a challenge especially for a group of students with a wide variety of skills such as in a life skills program. I often have limited time and resources as well. I am thankful to have a number of activities in my toolbox that have worked in a number of settings. The question chain happens to be one of them.
The question chain can be used to target a number of goals to include asking questions, answering yes and no questions, staying on topic, and concept vocabulary such as long short, and equal.
The only materials you need are plastic links or you can use strips of paper to make an old fashion paper chain. If you use the strips of paper to make a paper chain, a stapler is best for connecting rather than glue. It is faster and they stay together better. You need enough to make a chain of 10 or 15 links for each group you form. I usually divide the class into 3 to 5 groups so there are 3 to 5 students in each group. You can be flexible here.
The procedure is really very simple. Yes and no questions are asked and students are polled in each group. Each group puts a link together for each yes answer. The chains get longer and are compared to see if they are equal or if some are longer or shorter.
Depending on your group you may need to have preformulated questions. You can vary the complexity of the questions by how you ask them. It is really adaptable to the abilities of your group. The following are possible example questions.
- Do you have a brother or sister?
- Are you wearing blue?
- Do you have a pet (dog, cat, and fish)?
- Do you like pizza?
- Did you ride the bus today?
- Do you have short hair?
- Did you walk to school?
- Are you wearing red?
- Are your eyes brown?
- Do you like to eat carrots?
After giving some of the preformulated questions, the students can be given a chance to ask their own questions.
