Activities

Repetition Drill: D at the start

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What this drill is

Ten to twenty tries at d at the start, one card at a time. Buddy says it, you say it, the tally keeps score.

A repetition drill is the plainest thing in a session and usually the most productive: a set number of tries at one target, with a number at the end. Set the trial count before you start — ten for a warm-up, twenty when you want the count to mean something.

The cards come from D Sound: Word Start, so every trial puts the D sound at the start of words. If a child is stable at word level, move the card's dial to phrase or sentence mid-drill; the picture and the audio stay put, only the length changes.

How the turn works

Buddy takes the first turn every time: he says the word, and where the deck has a target sound he adds the cue for it. Then the banner flips to YOUR TURN, the mic orb starts pulsing, and he listens. What he hears decides what happens next — the target moves the drill on, a different word gets a warm reaction and a re-model, any voice at all gets credit, and silence gets hints rather than a stall. There is a green button on every card for a child who is not using a mic, and it is a first-class path, not a fallback.

The data you walk away with

The trial log runs beside the drill. Every turn lands as got it, almost or cue given; the listening result suggests the mark so a parent running this alone still gets data, and one tap changes it. Little Words does not do automated phoneme scoring — the adult in the room is the judge, and the export records which marks were suggested and which were yours. At the end you get a short summary with counts, an accuracy percent and the words worth another look, plus CSV, print and copy-to-clipboard. Everything stays on the device.

The words in this deck

  • door
  • deer
  • dad
  • donut
  • dance
  • desk
  • dinosaur
  • dolphin
  • dice
  • diver
  • doctor
  • donkey
  • dentist
  • daisy
  • domino
  • dig
  • diamond
  • dandelion
  • dump truck
  • dollhouse

Try next

  • Carryover Talk: D at the start
  • Say Three Things: D at the start
  • Repetition Drill: B at the start
  • Repetition Drill: CH at the end
  • Repetition Drill: CH at the start

Little Words activities are practice materials, not an assessment or a diagnosis. If you have a concern about a child's speech, a licensed speech-language pathologist is the person to ask.