How to store and organize your minimal pair cards

Have you ever had that moment where enough is enough, you are going to store your speech therapy materials in an organized place once and for all? I’ve finally decided on a storage situation for my minimal pair cards and want to share!

Why would you store your minimal pair cards?

1. They are so flexible for therapy. I pair a lot of games with my minimal pair cards, so having them easily accessible saves me time looking for them set I need.
2. When stored in a box you can quickly take them on school or home visit. Have you ever had loose minimal pair cards in your bag? It’s not fun.
3. You can use the boxes themselves for sorting and discrimination tasks.

I decided to go with colored storage boxes because rainbows make this SLP happy! I regularly use metaphors and visual cues to help teach the pattern that we are working on. By sticking the cues on the front of the box, I can easily identify the pattern.

Another fun idea is to use the boxes themselves as part of your therapy. You can sort the minimal pair contrasts into two piles to reinforce that they are different.

Another organizational hack that I’m loving is storage drawers. Because my caseload is speech sound disorders, I’ve decided to dedicate a whole drawer to each pattern that I typically work on. I’m often using a range of different cues, stories, and real objects when I work on minimal pairs, so having a dedicated drawer keeps everything in one easy spot.

For example, my Final Consonant Deletion drawer contains cards, a story on using your ‘tail sound’, little figurines of animals with tails and tail sounds (mouse, sheep, calf, duck, pig, etc.), and puzzle cards. Many times, I’m not sure WHAT teaching cue a child might need, so these drawers help me be more prepared.

Where can I find these cues and cards?

My Teach Phonology series contain minimal pair cards that fit inside these boxes. The resource also comes with visual cues in a variety of sizes. I simply stuck Velcro on the box and the back of the small cue cards.

FYI: These storage boxes were found at Spotlight and Kmart (for Australian SLPs). You can also find them at Michaels if you are a US-based SLP.