Speech Sparks
Sparky the star

About Speech Sparks

Speech Sparks provides practice materials for speech sounds: picture games, sound practice pages, word lists and printables. They are suitable for all ages — from children just starting to talk clearly through to older children who need more practice — and for their families and speech and language therapists.

Created by Ruth Schneider

Ruth Schneider · Speech and Language Therapist (Speech-Language Pathologist, SLP)

“I’m a UK-trained speech and language therapist, offering online and in-person therapy.”

Every game, word list and printable on Speech Sparks is created and approved by Ruth Schneider, a Speech and Language Therapist with 18 years of experience helping children and their families.

Important

Speech Sparks is an educational practice resource. It is not a diagnostic tool and does not replace individual assessment or therapy by a qualified speech and language therapist. Games never judge speech automatically — a listening adult decides.

How words are chosen

  • Words are tagged by sound (phoneme), not spelling — “nose” ends in /z/, “city” starts with /s/.
  • Blends (spoon, tree) are kept separate from single consonants; vocalic R (bird, car) is separate from consonantal R (rabbit).
  • Voiced and voiceless TH, S and Z, SH and ZH, CH and J are separate targets.
  • We don't invent words to fill impossible positions: English /h/ never ends a word, and /ŋ/ never begins one.
  • The website uses British English wording. The current pronunciation models and sound word lists use American English, including the separately labelled American R activities. Pronunciations vary with dialect and language background — these differences are respected, not errors.

Individual sessions

If your child would benefit from personalised advice, Ruth offers individual speech and language therapy sessions. Booking details will be added here soon.

Privacy

No account is needed and nothing is sent to a server. Practice lists last only for your browser session; a last-session summary (words and counts only) can be cleared at any time from Home Practice.

Credits

Word picture illustrations: OpenMoji — the open-source emoji and icon project, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (openmoji.org). Scene illustrations and Sparky are original artwork made for Speech Sparks.