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250+ K Words, Phrases, Sentences, and Reading Passages

As promised here are the words for your unlimited use .

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We also offer a free  5 part video series  on Teaching the K Sound.

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Initial K by Syllables

caterpillar

cauliflower

coincidence

combination

congratulate

Connecticut

conversation

kindergarten

congratulations

conversational

cooperation

Medial K by Syllables

acknowledge

handkerchief

salt shaker

stomachache

accountable

agriculture

application

persecution

walking safety

accommodation

amplification

incalculable

inconsiderate

justification

Final K by Syllables

birthday cake

garter snake

quarterback

railroad track

T-bone steak

wedding cake

chocolate cake

magazine rack

South Pacific

SEE ALSO:   The Best Free App for Speech Therapy

Initial K Phrases and Sentences

healthy cabbage

cactus in a pot

bright candle

piece of candy

fresh carrots

silver coin

freezing cold

traffic cone

new cookbook

yellow corn

red ketchup

wireless keyboard

Some people think cabbage is gross.

Her cabin is made from logs.

Cactus grow in funny shapes.

Everyone likes cake.

The soda was in a cooler.

The candle lit up the dark room.

I will save my candy.

The car is fast.

We will play a game with cards.

We pick carrots from the garden.

The cat was going to crawl away.

The cave was by the ocean.

A coat is for sale.

He used his coin to buy treats.

He shivers when he is cold.

She likes to comb her hair.

Slow down when you see a traffic cone.

She is using her cookbook to make dinner.

The cop was working a case.

We are having corn for dinner.

A farmer had a cow.

A bear cub looks so playful.

I put ketchup on all my food.

I lock my door with this key.

My keyboard is wireless.

She is a cute kid.

The kite flew high.

Medial K Phrases and Sentences

ripe apricot

crispy bacon

muffin baker

racing biker

green bookmark

eat breakfast

broken vase

playing checkers

chicken coop

fresh cookies

crunchy cracker

stubborn donkey

rain jacket

paper napkin

small package

male peacock

white pocket

orange pumpkin

raccoon tail

tennis racquet

red raincoat

soccer ball

pink sucker

crunchy taco

male turkey

white vacuum

An apricot is delicious.

A bacon smell fills the house.

A baker loves muffins.

Racing is fun for a biker.

She uses a bookmark to keep her page.

I love bacon, eggs, and orange juice for breakfast.

The vase was broken.

Checkers is a fun game.

The chicken was by the coop.

He likes his cookies fresh.

He has four crackers.

The donkey stood in a pasture.

She wore a rain jacket in case it rained.

He wrote on the napkin.

Where did this package come from?

The peacock has gorgeous feathers.

He has nothing in his pocket.

The pumpkin is on the rock.

The raccoon has a striped tail.

He hit the ball with the racquet.

His raincoat was red.

The boys love playing soccer.

The gum on my shoe is too sticky.

She licks her pink sucker.

He wants his taco fresh.

A turkey sounds funny when it gobbles.

I need to vacuum the rug.

Final K Phrases and Sentences

yummy cupcake

bad headache

strawberry milkshake

sheet music

notebook paper

pretty peacock

rake leaves

long sidewalk

healthy snack

throw stick

sore stomach

short toothpick

silver truck

He has a pain in his back.

He liked to bike long distances.

She wants to read the book.

She is pointing to her cheek.

Her cupcake was yummy.

He saw a duck at the petting zoo.

I have a bad headache.

Let's go on a hike in the mountains.

That is a rusty hook.

He has a leak in his pipes.

My dog likes to lick me.

You can use a lock on a shed.

I want a strawberry milkshake.

This looks like hard music to play.

She is touching her neck.

She uses her notebook every day.

We rake leaves in the fall.

The rock is heavy.

She is too sick to go to work.

The sidewalk goes through the park.

She is eating a midnight snack.

She throws a stick for her puppy.

His stomach was sore from the pain.

He has a toothpick in his mouth.

A silver truck drives by.

She goes for long walks.

K Reading Paragraphs

Uncle taco's bike.

Uncle Taco loved to go biking every weekend. He liked to bike up and down mountains, around lakes, and through tunnels and caves. He liked to bike when it was hot and when it was cold.

One day he wanted to go on a bike ride, but couldn't find his bike. He looked and looked, but could not find it.

On his way to work the next day, he was puzzling about where his bike would be. As he was walking he noticed a carrot-colored pumpkin in someone’s garden.

"That's it!" he exclaimed. He ran home as fast as his little biking legs could carry him.

When he got home, he ran to the shed behind his house. After moving the rake, his backpack, and his colorful kite, he found his bike - right next to a carrot-colored plastic pumpkin. He had put his bike in the shed to remind himself that he needed to clean it out. And he spent the next weekend doing just that.

Cookbook Detective

Every Tuesday I go to Candle Park. I listen to music and read my book of the week.

Last week I took my breakfast to the park with me. A taco, some bacon, and a milkshake...my favorite. As I ate my breakfast, a cop with a notebook came by.

"Did you see a cat, a donkey, or a duck run by here?" he asked.

"No sir, I didn't?" I said.

"I am a detective, and I am trying to solve the stolen cookbook case," he said, "If you see anything weird on this sidewalk please call me."

"I will," I said. When he left, I thought of a great book title for his case. I would call it "The Great Cookbook Catastrophe."

Katie's Candy

Katie is careful with her candy. She loves it. She doesn't like cookies, crackers, or cupcakes - just candy. She likes her candy so much, she puts a lock on her candy box whenever she goes to sleep. She wears the key around her neck.

All of that changed after Katie got a sick stomach from eating too much candy. Now she eats healthy food like carrots, corn, and turkey. She hopes she won't get sick like that again.

This list of functional words was professionally selected to be the most useful for a child or adult who has difficulty with producing the "K" sound.

We encourage you to use this list when practicing at home.

Doing home practice will help your child make much faster progress toward correct production.

Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) are only able to see students/clients 30-60 mins (or less) per week.

This is not enough time  for your child to overcome an articulation disorder with the "K" sound. But with high caseloads...

...it's all SLPs can do.

There's  only so much time  in the day.

Every day that your child goes without practice  it becomes more and more difficult  to correct an "K" error because he/she continues to say it incorrectly. 

SEE ALSO:   The Best Books for Speech Therapy Practice

We know life is busy , but if you're reading this you're probably someone who cares about helping their loved one as much as you can.

Practice 5-10 minutes whenever you can, but try to do it on a consistent basis (daily).

Please, please, please use this list to practice.

It will be a great benefit to you and your loved one's progress.

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20 Best K Words Speech Therapy Printables and Games

Looking for a fun way to engage kids in speech therapy using games? This FREE K Words Speech Therapy for initial sounds printable game with dot markers is perfect! 

Looking for a great way to practice target words in k initial position sounds?

Find a word list of k words below too.

Activities for correct speech sounds

Speech-language pathologists are always on the lookout for new and fun ways to help practice speech therapy in a fun way!

This printable game targets the k sound initials and encourages children to produce correct production of sounds.

See fun game ideas and printables for the full list of K Words Speech Therapy below too!

The k sound is made using the back of the mouth and in the soft palate. This is why sometimes children struggle to make this sound.

Pick up this FREE printable set for working on initial K words at the bottom of this post!

The final position in k sounds is also tricky, that’s why I included a list of games below you could use to target these sounds.

A child’s speech only develops at certain years of age. As children begin to understand how to make sounds using the back of the mouth, they then begin to produce correct specific sounds.

Don’t forget to get these free printable fox themed games for ‘s’ sounds in all positions!

Kids will find super fun favorite board games below to target these sounds, if your set of primary or elementary students are also struggling with it!

Sound disorders and sound errors

It’s important to note that there are specific differences in these two when it comes to a speech therapist working with young children. Speech students often think of these are linked, but really sometimes, it’s a slow progress in getting the phonological process working correctly.

Variety of home practice sheets for k sounds:

See a list of printables you can use for at home practice below.

FREE: Busy Homework for Speech Therapy for K and G Sounds: This freebie has been created to support SLPs needing to provide homework and speech practice to families who are out of school due to the current situation happening our country.

K and G Speech Sound Articulation Homework : Practice K and G sounds in the initial, medial, and final position of words with this NO PREP speech sound articulation homework packet.

Free Feed the Shark Medial K Sound Articulation Boom Cards | Speech Therapy: Feed the Shark Articulation is a no print, no prep interactive game where you feed the shark speech sound pictures as you practice your speech.

Articulation / Speech Sound Picture Search (K Initial) Freebie ! This product is a picture search for the /k/ initial sound. Use it in your speech sessions to keep students engaged or send it home for homework!

it’s important to note that giving out appropriate homework to practice speech and correct sound articulation is important. With soem guidance and practice, kids can begin to form the correct sound.

It’s not a once off practice. That’s why having a speech pathologist outline whether it’s a sound development delay or an articulation disorder is important.

Snowman themed s sound speech therapy snowman game.

A child’s tongue develops across many years, especially in the early years.

Final k words printables and games

Speech Therapy: Final /k/ and /g/ words go fish homework. These homework sheets are for articulation practice for final /k/ and final /g/ words. There are twelve words per page and two pages for each sound. 

Word Final /K/ Truck Activity: Students practice saying the /k/ sound in the final position of single-syllable words by cutting out target words and gluing them on to a truck.

CVC final k words clothes pin activity. This activity targets a variety of language skills including CVC word production, velar sounds in the final position of words, promoting letter learning, etc. 

K Words Speech Therapy PDF Game

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K Words Speech Therapy Shark Game

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Initial K Sound Words for Speech Therapy

Free initial k sound words for speech therapy printable flashcards featuring words with the "k" sound can be a useful tool for improving pronunciation and vocabulary. some of the flashcards included in this worksheets are:- car, cup, key, cake, cat, kangaroo, kite, king, kitchen, cactus, camera, cookie, castle and coat..

Download Printable Free Initial K Sound Words Articulation Flashcards

Free K Sound Articulation Words Flashcards

Free K sound articulation words flashcards for autism and speech therapy. Initial, medial and final word lists download printable PDF worksheets. The “k” sound, known as a voiceless velar stop, is produced by briefly stopping the airflow with the back of the tongue against the soft part of the roof of the mouth (the velum) and then releasing it with a burst of sound. These picture flashcards can be used to target different positions within words.

Initial K Words

Download Printable PDF

Medial K Words

Final K Words 

Interactive k words audio flashcards.

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The BEST K and G Words (Speech Therapy)

If you’re a speech language pathologist looking for activities, ideas, and articulation word lists for k and g words speech therapy practice, then you’re in the right place! This blog post explains the correct tongue position for k and g sounds. In addition, this article lists the most common substitutions for k and g, as well as articulation therapy tips for eliciting k and g sounds. Read on for k and g words speech therapy lists, and make sure to check out the recommended articulation activities for practicing these sounds! 

This post contains affiliate links, which means we could receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we have recommended.

Why Does a Speech Therapist Target K and G Words (Speech Therapy)?

A speech-language pathologist often targets k and g words in speech therapy. 

Many children, especially young children, have a hard time correctly producing k & g. 

SLPs teach the correct placement for velars and practice the target sound (k,g) in words, short phrases, and at the sentence level.

It is important to target a variety of articulation sounds as  children with speech sound disorders may be at risk for reading disorders .

Reference: 

Sices, L., Taylor, H. G., Freebairn, L., Hansen, A., & Lewis, B. (2007). Relationship between speech-sound disorders and early literacy skills in preschool-age children: impact of comorbid language impairment. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755217/#:~:text=Disorders%20of%20articulation%20or%20speech,phonologic%2C%20and%20verbal%20memory%20skills.

Correct Position for K and G

Both k and g sounds are velars and stops. 

These  velar consonants  are both considered to be a “back sound”- or speech sounds made “in the back of the mouth”.

The correct tongue placement for both k and g involves the back of the tongue lifting to make contact with the soft palate. 

At the same time, the front part of the tongue (tongue tip) is placed behind the lower front teeth.

A seal is formed for velar sounds and air pressure builds. 

This is a quick movement. You will hear the velar sound with the burst of air that is released. 

To feel this, put your hand near the front of the mouth during k and g production.

K is a voiceless sound. That means the vocal folds do not vibrate during the production of /k/.

G is a voiced sound. This means the vocal cords vibrate when saying /g/. 

Have your student feel their throat while producing /k/ and then /g/ to feel the difference between voiced and voiceless sounds.

Reference: Peña-Brooks Adriana, and M. N. Hegde.  Articulation and Phonological Disorders: Assessment and Treatment Resource Manual , PRO-ED, Austin, TX, 2007.

The Most Common Substitutions for K and G

Many different types of speech sound disorders can impact a child’s speech intelligibility.

This is an umbrella term that can include articulation disorders, phonological disorders, and motor speech disorders (such as  childhood apraxia of speech ).

Phonological processes, including  velar fronting  or  final consonant deletion , can impact the correct production of k and g sounds.

Need a breakdown of speech pattern simplifcations? Read about  the different phonological processes . 

Articulation Therapy Tips

Need a great way to teach the k&g sounds?

There are different ways to elicit these sounds during direct instruction therapy tasks. 

• Try auditory bombardment. Read word lists or  children’s books  that contain k and g sounds.
• You could try instructing a child to “Lift the back of your tongue”- but I like to  focus on the tongue tip as a better visual cue . I instruct my students to say their “low T” sound- and have the tip of their tongue touch the gumline behind their front bottom lower teeth.
• Minimal pairs  can be very effective when targeting velar sounds.
• Use your hand as a visual  for correct tongue placement.
• Use gravity!  Have your student lay on their back while practicing these sounds.
• A certified SLP could try using a  tongue depressor  to assist with lingual placement. This would only be recommended for a child who is comfortable with this method.
• Working with younger students? I love doing “feed the….” activities, which would be appropriate in early intervention or with preschoolers. Check out this  crocodile hand puppet  that can be fed small objects. Work on target words like “ick” and “yuck”.  

Resource Pictured: Speech Sound Mouth Cards

Home Practice Ideas

Parents can help students work on the k and g sounds at home.

One idea might be to provide parents with an  auditory bombardment word list .

Parents could read k or g words.

Their child should listen but not repeat the words.

Once a student can say the k or g sounds in isolation, they might practice  simple CV or VC sound combinations  (such as “go” or “ick”).

Finally, going on a  scavenger hunt  around the house for k and g words can be a fun activity.

Here are /k/ words that a child might find around the house:

G Word List

Are you looking for an articulation word list that contains g in the initial, medial, and final position of words? 

This blog post contains  g articulation word lists  that can be used during your speech therapy session.

K Word List

Here is a  word list for initial k, medial k, and final k words  that speech pathologists can use in therapy. 

These speech words can be paired with a game or a fun activity.

Articulation Word Lists

Do you need more articulation word lists to use in your speech therapy sessions? 

Check out these handy lists:

• Multisyllabic Words  (1-5 syllables)
• Cluster Words (S Blends)
• S Word Lists
• L Word Lists
• F Word Lists
• K Word Lists
• TH Word Lists
• R Words for Speech Therapy
• Z Word Lists
• V Words for Speech Therapy
• G Words for Speech Therapy
• SH Words for Speech Therapy

K & G Words Speech Therapy Activities

Are you a speech therapist searching for a fun way to practice target words in speech therapy?

If you are working on k and g sound production, be sure to check out these engaging resources.

• Speech Sound Mouth Visuals

These speech sound word cards will be unlike any you’ve ever owned.

You will be able to target a variety of speech sounds in the initial position, middle position, and end of a word.

First, these are a practical type of  speech room decor – I hang them up on my wall!

Next, these articulation cards are in the shapes of mouths- so you’ll have the ultimate handy visual during articulation therapy.

Finally, these cards can be laminated for unlimited use.

Try these  speech sound mouth cards   to work on speech sounds at the word level.

Minimal Pairs Activity Play Dough Smash Mat

If you are working on fronting, these minimal pair activity sheets will be perfect to pair with play dough or a magnetic wand and chips!

This  Minimal Pairs Bundle  includes minimal pair pages for a variety of phonological processes, including:

• cluster reduction
• initial consonant deletion
• final consonant deletion
• voicing and devoicing

The  velar and palatal fronting packet  is included in the bundle. 

How To Use The Minimal Pair Pages

An  auditory bombardment  word list is included on every page. 

For example, if you are targeting the initial k sound, a list of initial k words is provided at the bottom of the page.

Your student would listen as you read the words,  but not repeat them .

Next, you can do an  auditory discrimination activity  with your students. Which sound did they hear? I have my student give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to indicate if they heard (or did not hear) their target speech sound.

Finally, your student can  practice minimal pairs . 

If you are working on velar fronting, you’ll choose a specific page with either k or g words. 

Magical Minimal Pair Worksheets and Activity Pages

This  Magical-Themed Minimal Pair Bundle  also targets fronting!

Every phonology activity contains both a  color  and  low ink  option, so it’s  perfect  for on-the-go. Just print! 

If you wish, you can laminate the color pages.

In addition, this packet is FUN! 

Let imaginations SOAR with this magical packet! 

Adorable wizards, gnomes, fairies, and dragons decorate every page. 

This  Magical-Themed Phonology Bundle  includes cluster reduction, voicing and devoicing, initial consonant deletion, final consonant deletion, fronting, and backing activities.

The  fronting activity packet   (which is included in  the bundle ) contains the following minimal pairs:

• k vs t initial
• k vs t final
• d vs g initial
• d vs g final
• sh vs s initial
• sh vs s final

This will also you to target both velar and palatal fronting. 

Articulation Tic-Tac-Toe Worksheets

Have some  dot markers  on hand?

Or perhaps a  magnetic wand and chips ? 

Perfect, because you’ll want to use them with this  Articulation Tic Tac Toe  resource! 

A variety of speech sounds are targeted, including k and g.

Each page features words with one target sound in the initial position, medial position, and final position.

Your student will practice saying a word before each turn at the game.

If desired, your student could also generate short sentences using the target word!

K & G Mixed Groups Resource

School speech-language pathologists are often trying to see a large caseload while working around 15 or more teacher schedules, special schedules, and activity schedules.

This is in addition to fitting in IEP meetings and paperwork!

It can be a tough balancing act!

This often leads to seeing students in groups- and sometimes, the goals don’t always match up.

One student might be working on articulation, and another might have expressive or  receptive language goals ! 

This  Mixed Groups Bundle for Speech Therapy  offers the solution.

One page is selected based on the target speech sound (such as the initial k sound, which is provided in the  K & G Mixed Group Resource ).

Articulation words are sorted by noun or verb.

While one student works on articulation, another student can work on language goals- using the same target words. 

In summary, this article provided a variety of k and g words speech therapy lists (see  k words  and  g words ).

In addition, this article explained why a speech-language pathologist might target k and g words in speech therapy.

Read the article to better understand the correct lingual positioning for k & g.

Several elicitation tips are recommended for teaching velar sounds.

Related Speech Therapy Articles:

• Try These Beneficial Fronting Activities for Speech Therapy
• The Different Phonological Processes (List for SLPs)
• 6 Quick (and Easy) Speech Therapy Activities for Preschoolers
• Children’s Books for Speech Therapy: The Ultimate List

Finally, here are some effective resources to target k and g words in speech therapy:

• Minimal Pairs Activity Pages for Play Dough
• Magical-Themed Minimal Pairs Pages
• Articulation Tic Tac Toe Worksheets
• Mixed Groups Speech and Language Bundle for Speech Therapy

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50+ Best K and G Speech Therapy Activities (Free and Fun)

K and g speech therapy activities: effective techniques for articulation improvement.

If you are a speech therapist working on articulation therapy for the K & G sounds, then you are at the right place. In this blog post, we want to provide you with activities that specifically target the production of the ‘K’ and ‘G’ sounds. Articulation disorders and errors are common for these target sounds. These errors can affect a child’s speech, impacting their ability to communicate effectively. 

A great way to address these specific sounds in your speech practice, is to use a variety of techniques and tools. From one speech therapist to another, I wanted to make your therapy sessions easier, so in this blog post we will review how to correctly produce these speech sounds, give you a list of over 50 fun activities to do to practice correct sound production of ‘K’ and ‘G’ in your therapy sessions, as well as provide you with a great ‘K’ and ‘G’ articulation bundle freebie to start practicing these target sounds today!

K and G Sound Articulation Techniques

We’ll focus on effective speech therapy techniques that aid in the correct articulation of K and G sounds. Our approach is segmented into understanding tongue placement, engaging in activities to enhance back sound articulation, and utilizing the minimal pairs approach to distinguish between target sounds. 

First, let’s review some basics.

Speech Sound Fundamentals

Understanding and working with speech sound production is critical in speech therapy. Key components we attend to are:

• Tongue Placement : Crucial for accurate articulation. For example, for back of the mouth sounds, the back of the tongue rises towards the soft palate.
• Back of the Tongue : This is important for producing sounds like “k” and “g”, which are formed at the back of the mouth .
• Soft Palate : The soft part at the back of the roof of the mouth must be manipulated correctly for certain sounds.
• Vocal Folds : We ensure they function properly for voiced sounds.

We can use tools such as a tongue depressor to facilitate correct tongue placement and exercises that help strengthen the muscles involved in speech.

Tongue Positioning for K and G Sounds

Proper tongue placement is crucial for the correct production of K and G sounds, which are back sounds. For the K sound , the back of the tongue elevates to touch the soft palate, creating a burst of air when released. For the G sound , this placement is similar, but the vocal cords vibrate.

• Raise back of the tongue to the soft palate.
• Create tension before releasing a burst of air.
• Ensure vocal cord vibration for G sound.

Activities for Back Sound Articulation

Speech therapy activities geared towards K and G sounds involve exercises that encourage the correct placement of the tongue for back of the mouth sound articulation.

• Articulation Bundle : A sequence of targeted exercises that focus on sound production.
• Mirror Exercises : Practicing in front of a mirror helps visually confirm tongue placement.
• Blowing Activities : Use activities like blowing bubbles to strengthen muscles necessary for the burst of air required in these sounds.

Minimal Pairs Approach

The minimal pairs approach is a technique that contrasts words differing by only one sound to refine articulation. This method helps individuals distinguish between similar-sounding words, enforcing the correct placement and production of K and G sounds.

• “Come” vs. “Gum”
• “Card” vs. “Guard”
• “Back” vs. “Bag”

Using these pairs in practice drills aids in reinforcing the relative tongue placement and sound articulation for each word.

Specific Techniques for K and G Sounds

When addressing the pronunciation of K and G sounds, it’s crucial to incorporate techniques that engage multiple senses to solidify learning. We’ll explore tactile and kinesthetic strategies as well as methods for enhancing auditory discrimination.

Tactile and Kinesthetic Methods

Tactile and kinesthetic approaches involve physical touch and movement to teach the correct placement and motion for the K and G sounds, which are back sounds. Here are specific strategies:

• Place a finger on the throat : Children feel the vibration of their own voices, discerning between voiced (G sounds) and voiceless pairs of sounds (K sounds).
• Use a mirror : Watching their own tongues can help children understand where the back of the tongue needs to raise to make the K and G sounds.
• Quick movement exercises : Guide children to move their tongues quickly to the correct position, reinforcing the muscle memory required to produce these specific sounds.

Auditory Discrimination for K and G Sounds

Auditory discrimination is crucial for distinguishing between similar sounding phonemes. For K and G sounds, which are front sounds, we can employ the following activities:

• Minimal Pairs : Introduce pairs of words that only differ in the K or G sound (like “cold” and “gold”) to sharpen listening skills.
• Phoneme Isolation : Practice saying words that contain the target sounds, emphasizing the K or G sound so 

K & G Resources and Activities

Below you will find a comprehensive list of over 50 ‘K’ and ‘G’ Sound Articulation Activities and Resources! 

K & G Initial Sounds

• Initial g and k words speech “fishing” homework freebie by Saidi Marshal is a set of homework sheets with 12 words per page. This is a fun way to practice K and G at the word level!
• FREE Initial K & G Articulation Sound-Loaded Sentences Worksheet by the Speech Spot Creations is a speech therapy worksheet that has target words that start with K and G. Start practicing your students phonological process with this highly rated freebie!
• ARTICULATION CARDS Students can color & keep: Initial K & G FREE! By The Beachy Therapist is a resource with single words and a letter name on a card for students to practice their articulation skills with initial K & G!

BONUS: Our shop store has some amazing articulation bundles! Grab this bundle of over 20 sound decks of cards (Initial, Medial and Final K & G included) for $14. We love sending these home for students to color as homework, then using the deck of cards to play a ton of different articulation games in their speech therapy session. Or have them play those games with family at home!

K & G Final Position

• English & Spanish Articulation K & G Sound Spring Printable for Speech Therapy by Bilingial SLP LLC is a fun spring themed printable to practice final K & G. We recommend this resource for your elementary students. 
• Speech Therapy: Final /k/ and /g/ words “fishing” homework by Saidi Marshall is a great resource to have students practice k and g sounds at the end of the word.
• Frog and Pond Speech Therapy Game with Final G Articulation Cards by Speech Sprouts is an engaging final g drilling activity that students love!

Activities with Visual Cues

• Speech Sound Cue Cards – FREEBIE by Lauren Walters is a great resource to have that reminds children with visual cues what theirs mouth should look like as they say a letter sound.
• Final Consonant Deletion: Boat Theme by Speech With Miss Chelsea is an engaging articulation game with the sounds K & G included. Students are given multiple visual cues such as they boat and sentence strips as they practice K & G sounds and build in complexity level.
• Articulation and Speech Sounds visual support BUNDLE (FREE) by Free Speech Goodies is a pack of 11 pages with visual cues on how to pronounce multiple sounds including K and G.

Tactile Activities 

• Shape and Say Articulation: Winter Theme Free by Miss Gardenia’s Speech Room is an engaging activity that has students build pictures with shape tiles as they practice their language skills. This activity includes lots of letter sounds including K & G!
• Counting Bears Early Sounds Articulation Mats FREEBIE by Panda Speech is a bundle with multiple sounds that has students practice articulation as they cover mats with counting bears. This is a highly rated hands on activity!
• Dough Articulation: K, G, F, S by Jenna Rayburn Kirk is an activity that younger elementary students love! Print out these mats with the name of the letter K & G and have students use playdough or clay as they practice articulation. We also recommend having students make a play dough ball to build into the pictures on the mats starting with that target sound.
• Magnet Tiles Speech FREE Sample for /k/ and /g/: Articulation Toy Companion by Panda Speech is a favorite hands on activity! Students use magna-tile blocks to build letters and objects with their target sounds and words.

FOR YOU! We love hands on games, so we created a bundle of articulation fortune teller oragamis for students to practice their articulation skills! My students have loved cutting and folding these and then moving their hands around as they practice their target sounds. K & G are included in this bundle, but there are more than 20 sounds! Scroll to the bottom for a free sample of the origami fortune tellers for K and G!

Articulation Games

• ARTICULATION WHEELS: K, G, T, & D FREE! By The Beachy Therapist is such a fun and easy to play game to practice K & G! This is a low prep activity for many different years of age students!
• Go Gumballs Game! Articulation G Initial, Medial and Final! By Now We’re Talkin is a highly rated articulation game for younger elementary students that has a cute, gum ball themed gameboards!
• Ugly Sweater Laundry – Articulation Game by The Urban SLP is a fun articulation game that has students laughing and engaged.

PRO TIP! We love original and creative articulation games, but there is also something to be said about the classics! At our Speech Therapy Store Shop , you will find articulation bundles to go with classic games such as our  Articulation Apple to Apple Game , Articulation Connect Four , and Articulation Bingo! Check them out!

Articulation Cards

• HAM Articulation by Speech Me Maybe is a great articulation game with over 72 articulation cards to practice with! This deck focuses on K and G.
• Monkey Match Articulation – k & g by SLPfromCLE is a highly rated articulation cards game that engages students with silly monkeys and written symbols. 
• Animal Photo Articulation Flashcards by Busy Miss Lizzy Speech is a set of flashcards for K and G articulation with engaging animal photos on them!

SLPS LOVE IT! Our articulation Go Fish Deck Bundle is a favorite! This deck of articulation cards has something for everyone on your caseload!

Interactive Games

• Build a K and G Articulation Sentence Scene No Print Freebie by Beth Sies Creation for SLPs is a fully interactive game that has students build single words into a short sentence! This is great for students who are at sentence level articulation practice!
• Track The Turkey Articulation – K and G (Lite Version) by Thought Bubble Therapist is an engaging game that has students practice  Kand G articulation as they track a turkey in a picture search scene. 
• Speech Sounds: S, K, G, F, SH, CH, T, D, P, B by Kristen Leer is a great resource for younger elementary students that prompts them to drag and match single words to pictures.

SEE ALSO: 21 Best Reinforcement Games for Speech Therapy

• FREE SAMPLE Silly Sentences K and G Boom Cards™ Speech Therapy Articulation by Pinwheel Speech Source is a great resource that uses silly sentences to practice K and G at sentence level!
• Boom Digital Cards Articulation K,G Sounds by Badger State Speechie is an interactive boom card set to practice high frequency k and g words!
• Back to School K & G Sounds Boom Cards™ – Sticker Book – Articulation by Michelle’s Communication Corner is a highly rated boom card set that is interactive and fun for elementary students!

Minimal Pairs

• Final /k/ and /g/ Minimal Pairs by the Curious SLP is a great resource for speech students with different types of speech sound disorders. Practice final K and G minimal pairs with a visual cue in this freebie!
• Fronting & Backing Minimal Pairs (/k/ /t/ and /g/ /d/) by Rachel’s Speech Goodies is a 5 page set of minimal pairs flashcards that target the phonological process of k and g fronting.
• Articulation: Minimal Pairs K and G, T and D, CH and SH by Miss Gardnia’s Speech Room is a spring and butterfly themed minimal pairs articulation card set.
• /K/ and /G/ Sound Battleship Word List by Savvy Speech is a complete K and G wordlist that prompts a battle ship game.
• Initial K and G Word List FREE for Speech Therapy Practice by Karina Kurlz is a word lists for K and G with clear and engaging pictures.
• Father’s Day Word List: K & G by The Speech Spot Creations is a set of Initial and Final K and G Words with a Father’s Day theme.

BONUS: Visit our blog for an extensive list of articulation word lists and flashcards , as well as articulation freebies! Here are the highly rated K Word Blog Posts!

Younger Students

• K and G Speech Sound Articulation Homework by Speech Language Lady is a K and G homework bundle created for younger elementary students! 
• K and G Fall Trees Printable Articulation Activity Speech Therapy FREEBIE by Pinwheel Speech Resources is a hands on activity for younger students that has them color or dot leaves as they practice their articulation target words.
• No Prep K & G Articulation Fronting Game Boards by Britney Adams – SLP is a fun fall themed game boards for younger students to play on and practice the K and G sounds.

Sentences and Conversational Level

• Encanto Articulation K and G by Jacelyn Kieffner is an older elementary favorite! Students use the movie Encanto to practice K and G articulation at sentence level.
• Build a K and G Articulation Sentence Scene No Print Freebie by Beth Sies Creation for SLPS is a highly rated free resource to practice building sentences with K and G articulation.
• G Flashcards and K Flashcards at sentence/convo level by Speech Therapy Store are a great way to practice articulation at word/phrase/sentence level. Use the flashcards to practice the WH- Questions for conversational level articulation practice too!

High School Students

• Articulation Tower K/G Edition by Speech with Sharon is an engaging game similar to jenga that is great for older students to practice their K and G articulation in a fun way. 
• Fry Words Articulation Card Deck- VELARS (Freebie!) by Voices Ablaze is a great resource that helps incorporate more articulation words into literacy sessions for high school students.
• At Home Word Lists for Articulation and Phonology for SLPs – Freebie by Natalie Snyders is an organized word list to practice K and G articulation with your older students! Send this home to practice as homework. 

Ready to Go Worksheets

• Spring Themed Articulation K & G Sounds Coloring Work Sheets Print & Go! By Sparkly Speech Girl are no prep, print and go coloring worksheets to practice K and G with your speech students!
• FREEBIE! Valentine’s Day No Prep /K/ & /G/ Articulation by Speachin -n -teachin are fun valentines themed worksheets to practice K and G.
• FREEBIE Articulation Bones – initial /k/ and initial /g/ by a Spoonful of Speech is a no prep set of worksheets for you to use in your therapy room to practice K and G!

SEE ALSO: Free Articulation Games for Speech Therapy

Picture scenes.

• K & G Summer Articulation Folding Surprise Craft by Jeannie’s Speech room is a highly rated craft that opens into a picture scene for students to practice K and G articulation. This is great to send home as homework as well!
• FREE No Print Final Consonant Deletion Picture Scenes for Speech Therapy by Teach Speech 365 is a no print picture scene for your students to practice lots of articulation words including K and G!
• Christmas Search and Find Articulation Homework by Old Speech School is a highly rated free resource! Students search, find and color the target K and G articulation words in a picture scene.

Seasonal Activities

• Free Thanksgiving Baking Articulation Activity (K & G Sounds) by Lil Mae’s Speech is a great set of boom cards with a Fall and Thanksgiving theme!
• Spring Freebie: Articulation /k/ and /g/ by Tale of Two Speechies is a bundle of Spring themed K and G articulation worksheets. This is highly rated!
• Initial /K and G/ Fall Leaves – Articulation Craft FREEBIE by Let’s Get Speechie

Books and Short Stories

• Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is perfect for articulation therapy goals on your caseload. The repetitive text with the “g” sounds helps children with speech disorders to anticipate what might come next in the story. 
• Articulation K and G: Pictured Silly Stories & Word Lists by Speech2u is a highly rated game that uses K and G silly words to make K and G short and silly sentences! 
• G Sound Mini Articulation Activity Book Initial Medial Final Words and Phrases by Pep Talk is an engaging mini book to build with your students to practice the G sound.

For You! Grab our Articulation Reading Passages to practice your articulation goals with your students! This is a bundle of 266 reading passages with 6 stories per sound, and 20 articulation words per passage. 

SEE ALSO: 279+ Free Speech Therapy Digital Materials

Reinforcement Games

• Free Sample! /k/ and /g/ Articulation Coloring pages by Easy Peasy Lemon Speechie is a great reinforcement game with high instances of hitting the target sound.
• K & G Articulation Dots FREEBIE! By Linden Speech is a great worksheet that is engaging and reinforcing for students practicing their K and G articulation.
• Hugs and Kisses: Articulation K and G by a Speechie World is a fun and silly game that students love to play! It has one game board and 2 mats.

We hope this list of resources to use when practicing K and G articulation is inspirational and helpful for you! There are so many ways to teach K and G, and making the speech therapy session engaging and fun for our students is a high priority! 

To help make your sessions fun, but also easy for you to plan, we compiled this bundle of a K and G preview of some of our most popular articulation games! Enter your info below to grab a preview of our Articulation Fortune Tellers and Articulation Tic Tac Toe for the K and G sounds. Find more of our Articulation Game Bundles on our Speech Therapy Store Shop! 

<< FILL OUT THE FORM BELOW TO DOWNLOAD A MINI BUNDLE OF K & G ARTICULATION ACTIVITIES! >>

Grab your mini bundle of k and g articulation activities, frequently asked questions.

In addressing these frequently asked questions, we aim to provide specific, evidence-based answers that will be useful for speech therapists, parents, and educators involved in helping children practice and improve their articulation of K and G sounds.

What activities can help children practice K and G sounds in speech therapy?

We often use engaging activities like blowing bubbles to encourage the production of the /k/ sound, as it closely resembles the mouth shape required to say “k.” For the /g/ sound, we might incorporate games involving animals, like gorillas or geese, as they naturally elicit the /g/ sound in a fun context.

How does using minimal pairs in therapy assist with correcting K and G sound errors?

Using minimal pairs, such as “coat” and “goat,” assists in enhancing phonological awareness. We find that this contrastive approach helps children discern the difference between sounds, thereby improving their articulation accuracy for K and G.

What are some age-appropriate K and G speech activities for preschoolers?

We use play-based activities such as “kitchen” stations for the /k/ sound or “garden” themes for the /g/ sound. These relevant, enjoyable activities help preschoolers practice the sounds without the drills feeling like work.

How effective are loaded sentences in the remediation of K and G sounds?

Loaded sentences, which are packed with target sounds, have proven very effective in our work. This repetitive and contextual practice encourages the child to use K and G sounds in a sentence-level format, fostering generalization to natural speech.

What types of ‘Would You Rather’ questions could be used to reinforce K and G sounds in therapy sessions?

We may use questions such as “Would you rather have a pet kitten or a pet kangaroo?” to practice the /k/ sound. For the /g/ sound, we might ask, “Would you rather grow grapes or play a game?” These choices invoke more natural speech and frequently repeat the targeted sounds.

At what age should a child typically be able to pronounce K and G sounds correctly?

Children typically master the K and G sounds by the age of three to four years. However, we observe variations in development, and we emphasize the value of early intervention if a child is showing signs of difficulty with these sounds.

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Are ‘Forever Chemicals’ a Forever Problem?

The environmental protection agency says “forever chemicals” must be removed from tap water. but they lurk in much more of what we eat, drink and use..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is “The Daily.”

[THEME MUSIC]

This month for the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency began to regulate a class of synthetic chemicals, known as forever chemicals, in America’s drinking water. But the chemicals, which have been linked to liver disease and other serious health problems, are in far more than just our water supply. Today, my colleague Kim Tingley explains.

It’s Wednesday, April 17.

So Kim, any time the EPA announces a regulation, I think we all sort of take notice because implicit in it is this idea that we have been exposed to something — something bad, potentially, lead or asbestos. And recently, the EPA is regulating a type of chemical known as PFAS So for those who don’t know, what are PFAS chemicals

Yeah, so PFAS stands for per and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They’re often called forever chemicals just because they persist so long in the environment and they don’t easily break down. And for that reason, we also use them in a ton of consumer products. They’re in makeup. They’re in carpet. They’re in nonstick cookware. They’re in food packaging, all sorts of things.

Yeah, I feel like I’ve been hearing about these chemicals actually for a very long time. I mean, nonstick pans, Teflon — that’s the thing that’s in my mind when I think PFAS.

Absolutely. Yeah, this class of chemicals has been around for decades. And what’s really important about this is that the EPA has decided, for the first time, to regulate them in drinking water. And that’s a ruling that stands to affect tens of millions of people.

So, help me understand where these things came from and how it’s taken so long to get to the point where we’re actually regulating them.

So, they really actually came about a long time ago. In 1938, DuPont, the people who eventually got us to Teflon, they were actually looking for a more stable kind of refrigerant. And they came upon this kind of chemical, PFAS. The thing that all PFAS chemicals have is a really strong bond between carbon atoms and fluorine atoms. This particular pairing is super strong and super durable.

They have water repellent properties. They’re stain resistant. They’re grease resistant. And they found a lot of uses for them initially in World War II. They were using them as part of their uranium enrichment process to do all these kinds of things. And then —

Well, good thing it’s Teflon.

In the 1950s is when they really started to come out as commercial products.

Even burned food won’t stick to Teflon. So it’s always easy to clean.

So, DuPont started using it in Teflon pans.

Cookware never needs scouring if it has DuPont Teflon.

And then another company, 3M also started using a kind of PFAS —

Scotchgard fabric protector. It keeps ordinary spills from becoming extraordinary stains.

— in one of their big products, Scotchgard. So you probably remember spraying that on your shoes if you want to make your shoes waterproof.

Use Scotchgard fabric protector and let your cup runneth over.

Right — miracle product, Scotchgard, Teflon. But of course, we’re talking about these chemicals because they’ve been found to pose health threats. When does that risk start to surface?

Yeah, so it’s pretty early on that DuPont and 3M start finding effects in animals in studies that they’re running in house.

Around the mid ‘60s, they start seeing that PFAS has an effect on rats. It’s increasing the liver and kidney weights of the rats. And so that seems problematic. And they keep running tests over the next decade and a half. And they try different things with different animals.

In one study, they gave monkeys really, really high levels of PFAS. And those monkeys died. And so they have a pretty strong sense that these chemicals could be dangerous. And then in 1979, they start to see that the workers that are in the plants manufacturing, working with these chemicals, that they’re starting to have higher rates of abnormal liver function. And in a Teflon plant, they had some pregnant workers that were working with these chemicals. And one of those workers in 1981 gave birth to a child who had some pretty severe birth defects.

And then by the mid 1980s, DuPont figures out that it’s not just their workers who are being exposed to these chemicals, but communities that are living in areas surrounding their Teflon plant, particularly the one in Parkersburg, West Virginia, that those communities have PFAS in their tap water.

Wow, so based on its own studies, DuPont knows its chemicals are making animals sick. They seem to be making workers sick. And now they found out that the chemicals have made their way into the water supply. What do they do with that information?

As far as we know, they didn’t do much. They certainly didn’t tell the residents of Parkersburg who were drinking that water that there was anything that they needed to be worried about.

How is that possible? I mean, setting aside the fact that DuPont is the one actually studying the health effects of its own chemicals, presumably to make sure they’re safe, we’ve seen these big, regulating agencies like the EPA and the FDA that exist in order to watch out for something exactly like this, a company that is producing something that may be harming Americans. Why weren’t they keeping a closer watch?

Yeah, so it goes kind of back to the way that we regulate chemicals in the US. It goes through an act called the Toxic Substances Control Act that’s administered by the EPA. And basically, it gives companies a lot of room to regulate themselves, in a sense. Under this act they have a responsibility to report to the EPA if they find these kinds of potential issues with a chemical. They have a responsibility to do their due diligence when they’re putting a chemical out into the environment.

But there’s really not a ton of oversight. The enforcement mechanism is that the EPA can find them. But this kind of thing can happen pretty easily where DuPont keeps going with something that they think might really be a problem and then the fine, by the time it plays out, is just a tiny fraction of what DuPont has earned from producing these chemicals. And so really, the incentive is for them to take the punishment at the end, rather than pull it out early.

So it seems like it’s just self-reporting, which is basically self-regulation in a way.

Yeah, I think that is the way a lot of advocacy groups and experts have characterized it to me, is that chemical companies are essentially regulating themselves.

So how did this danger eventually come to light? I mean, if this is in some kind of DuPont vault, what happened?

Well, there’s a couple different things that started to happen in the late ‘90s.

The community around Parkersburg, West Virginia, people had reported seeing really strange symptoms in their animals. Cows were losing their hair. They had lesions. They were behaving strangely. Some of their calves were dying. And a lot of people in the community felt like they were having health problems that just didn’t really have a good answer, mysterious sicknesses, and some cases of cancers.

And so they initiate a class action lawsuit against DuPont. As part of that class action lawsuit, DuPont, at a certain point, is forced to turn over all of their internal documentation. And so what was in the files was all of that research that we mentioned all of the studies about — animals, and workers, the birth defects. It was really the first time that the public saw what DuPont and 3M had already seen, which is the potential health harms of these chemicals.

So that seems pretty damning. I mean, what happened to the company?

So, DuPont and 3M are still able to say these were just a few workers. And they were working with high levels of the chemicals, more than a person would get drinking it in the water. And so there’s still an opportunity for this to be kind of correlation, but not causation. There’s not really a way to use that data to prove for sure that it was PFAS that caused these health problems.

In other words, the company is arguing, look, yes, these two things exist at the same time. But it doesn’t mean that one caused the other.

Exactly. And so one of the things that this class action lawsuit demands in the settlement that they eventually reach with DuPont is they want DuPont to fund a formal independent health study of the communities that are affected by this PFAS in their drinking water. And so they want DuPont to pay to figure out for sure, using the best available science, how many of these health problems are potentially related to their chemicals.

And so they ask them to pay for it. And they get together an independent group of researchers to undertake this study. And it ends up being the first — and it still might be the biggest — epidemiological study of PFAS in a community. They’ve got about 69,000 participants in this study.

Wow, that’s big.

It’s big, yeah. And what they ended up deciding was that they could confidently say that there was what they ended up calling a probable link. And so they were really confident that the chemical exposure that the study participants had experienced was linked to high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, kidney cancer, and pregnancy induced hypertension.

And so those were the conditions that they were able to say, with a good degree of certainty, were related to their chemical exposure. There were others that they just didn’t have the evidence to reach a strong conclusion.

So overall, pretty substantial health effects, and kind of vindicates the communities in West Virginia that were claiming that these chemicals were really affecting their health.

Absolutely. And as the years have gone on, that was sort of just the beginning of researchers starting to understand all the different kinds of health problems that these chemicals could potentially be causing. And so since the big DuPont class action study, there’s really just been like this building and building and building of different researchers coming out with these different pieces of evidence that have accumulated to a pretty alarming picture of what some of the potential health outcomes could be.

OK, so that really kind of brings us to the present moment, when, at last, it seems the EPA is saying enough is enough. We need to regulate these things.

Yeah, it seems like the EPA has been watching this preponderance of evidence accumulate. And they’re sort of deciding that it’s a real health problem, potentially, that they need to regulate.

So the EPA has identified six of these PFAS chemicals that it’s going to regulate. But the concern that I think a lot of experts have is that this particular regulation is not going to keep PFAS out of our bodies.

We’ll be right back.

So, Kim, you just said that these regulations probably won’t keep PFAS chemicals out of our bodies. What did you mean?

Well, the EPA is talking about regulating these six kinds of PFAS. But there are actually more than 10,000 different kinds of PFAS that are already being produced and out there in the environment.

And why those six, exactly? I mean, is it because those are the ones responsible for most of the harm?

Those are the ones that the EPA has seen enough evidence about that they are confident that they are probably causing harm. But it doesn’t mean that the other ones are not also doing something similar. It’s just sort of impossible for researchers to be able to test each individual chemical compound and try to link it to a health outcome.

I talked to a lot of researchers who were involved in this area and they said that they haven’t really seen a PFAS that doesn’t have a harm, but they just don’t have information on the vast majority of these compounds.

So in other words, we just haven’t studied the rest of them enough yet to even know how harmful they actually are, which is kind of alarming.

Yeah, that’s right. And there’s just new ones coming out all the time.

Right. OK, so of the six that the EPA is actually intending to regulate, though, are those new regulations strict enough to keep these chemicals out of our bodies?

So the regulations for those six chemicals really only cover getting them out of the drinking water. And drinking water only really accounts for about 20 percent of a person’s overall PFAS exposure.

So only a fifth of the total exposure.

Yeah. There are lots of other ways that you can come into contact with PFAS. We eat PFAS, we inhale PFAS. We rub it on our skin. It’s in so many different products. And sometimes those products are not ones that you would necessarily think of. They’re in carpets. They’re in furniture. They’re in dental floss, raincoats, vinyl flooring, artificial turf. All kinds of products that you want to be either waterproof or stain resistant or both have these chemicals in them.

So, the cities and towns are going to have to figure out how to test for and monitor for these six kinds of PFAS. And then they’re also going to have to figure out how to filter them out of the water supply. I think a lot of people are concerned that this is going to be just a really expensive endeavor, and it’s also not really going to take care of the entire problem.

Right. And if you step back and really look at the bigger problem, the companies are still making these things, right? I mean, we’re running around trying to regulate this stuff at the end stage. But these things are still being dumped into the environment.

Yeah. I think it’s a huge criticism of our regulatory policy. There’s a lot of onus put on the EPA to prove that a harm has happened once the chemicals are already out there and then to regulate the chemicals. And I think that there’s a criticism that we should do things the other way around, so tougher regulations on the front end before it goes out into the environment.

And that’s what the European Union has been doing. The European Chemicals Agency puts more of the burden on companies to prove that their products and their chemicals are safe. And the European Chemicals Agency is also, right now, considering just a ban on all PFAS products.

So is that a kind of model, perhaps, of what a tough regulation could look like in the US?

There’s two sides to that question. And the first side is that a lot of people feel like it would be better if these chemical companies had to meet a higher standard of proof in terms of demonstrating that their products or their chemicals are going to be safe once they’ve been put out in the environment.

The other side is that doing that kind of upfront research can be really expensive and could potentially limit companies who are trying to innovate in that space. In terms of PFAS, specifically, this is a really important chemical for us. And a lot of the things that we use it in, there’s not necessarily a great placement at the ready that we can just swap in. And so it’s used in all sorts of really important medical devices or renewable energy industries or firefighting foam.

And in some cases, there are alternatives that might be safer that companies can use. But in other cases, they just don’t have that yet. And so PFAS is still really important to our daily lives.

Right. And that kind of leaves us in a pickle because we know these things might be harming us. Yet, we’re kind of stuck with them, at least for now. So, let me just ask you this question, Kim, which I’ve been wanting to ask you since the beginning of this episode, which is, if you’re a person who is concerned about your exposure to PFAS, what do you do?

Yeah. So this is really tricky and I asked everybody this question who I talked to. And everybody has a little bit of a different answer based on their circumstance. For me what I ended up doing was getting rid of the things that I could sort of spot and get rid of. And so I got rid of some carpeting and I checked, when I was buying my son a raincoat, that it was made by a company that didn’t use PFAS.

It’s also expensive. And so if you can afford to get a raincoat from a place that doesn’t manufacture PFAS, it’s going to cost more than if you buy the budget raincoat. And so it’s kind of unfair to put the onus on consumers in that way. And it’s also just not necessarily clear where exactly your exposure is coming from.

So I talk to people who said, well, it’s in dust, so I vacuum a lot. Or it’s in my cleaning products, so I use natural cleaning products. And so I think it’s really sort of a scattershot approach that consumers can take. But I don’t think that there is a magic approach that gets you a PFAS-free life.

So Kim, this is pretty dark, I have to say. And I think what’s frustrating is that it feels like we have these government agencies that are supposed to be protecting our health. But when you drill down here, the guidance is really more like you’re on your own. I mean, it’s hard not to just throw up your hands and say, I give up.

Yeah. I think it’s really tricky to try to know what you do with all of this information as an individual. As much as you can, you can try to limit your individual exposure. But it seems to me as though it’s at a regulatory level that meaningful change would happen, and not so much throwing out your pots and pans and getting new ones.

One thing about PFAS is just that we’re in this stage still of trying to understand exactly what it’s doing inside of us. And so there’s a certain amount of research that has to happen in order to both convince people that there’s a real problem that needs to be solved, and clean up what we’ve put out there. And so I think that we’re sort of in the middle of that arc. And I think that that’s the point at which people start looking for solutions.

Kim, thank you.

Here’s what else you should know today. On Tuesday, in day two of jury selection for the historic hush money case against Donald Trump, lawyers succeeded in selecting 7 jurors out of the 12 that are required for the criminal trial after failing to pick a single juror on Monday.

Lawyers for Trump repeatedly sought to remove potential jurors whom they argued were biased against the president. Among the reasons they cited were social media posts expressing negative views of the former President and, in one case, a video posted by a potential juror of New Yorkers celebrating Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. Once a full jury is seated, which could come as early as Friday, the criminal trial is expected to last about six weeks.

Today’s episode was produced by Clare Toeniskoetter, Shannon Lin, Summer Thomad, Stella Tan, and Jessica Cheung, with help from Sydney Harper. It was edited by Devon Taylor, fact checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop, and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for The Daily. I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.

• April 18, 2024   •   30:07 The Opening Days of Trump’s First Criminal Trial
• April 17, 2024   •   24:52 Are ‘Forever Chemicals’ a Forever Problem?
• April 16, 2024   •   29:29 A.I.’s Original Sin
• April 15, 2024   •   24:07 Iran’s Unprecedented Attack on Israel
• April 14, 2024   •   46:17 The Sunday Read: ‘What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise’
• April 12, 2024   •   34:23 How One Family Lost $900,000 in a Timeshare Scam
• April 11, 2024   •   28:39 The Staggering Success of Trump’s Trial Delay Tactics
• April 10, 2024   •   22:49 Trump’s Abortion Dilemma
• April 9, 2024   •   30:48 How Tesla Planted the Seeds for Its Own Potential Downfall
• April 8, 2024   •   30:28 The Eclipse Chaser
• April 7, 2024 The Sunday Read: ‘What Deathbed Visions Teach Us About Living’
• April 5, 2024   •   29:11 An Engineering Experiment to Cool the Earth

Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Featuring Kim Tingley

Produced by Clare Toeniskoetter ,  Shannon M. Lin ,  Summer Thomad ,  Stella Tan and Jessica Cheung

With Sydney Harper

Edited by Devon Taylor

Original music by Dan Powell ,  Elisheba Ittoop and Marion Lozano

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The Environmental Protection Agency has begun for the first time to regulate a class of synthetic chemicals known as “forever chemicals” in America’s drinking water.

Kim Tingley, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, explains how these chemicals, which have been linked to liver disease and other serious health problems, came to be in the water supply — and in many more places.

On today’s episode

Kim Tingley , a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine.

Background reading

“Forever chemicals” are everywhere. What are they doing to us?

The E.P.A. issued its rule about “forever chemicals” last week.

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Fact-checking by Susan Lee .

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

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Scotland Replaced One Blasphemy Law With Another | Opinion

In 1697, a man was executed in Scotland for "blaspheming" for the last time.

Thomas Aikenhead, a 20-year-old Edinburgh student of divinity, had joked about the Christian faith while out with friends and challenged the authenticity of the miracles recorded in the Bible. His university friends testified against him in court and, facing the most senior lawyer in Scotland as prosecutor, Aikenhead could not afford a legal defense and represented himself—unsuccessfully.

Such days are long gone. Scotland repealed its defunct blasphemy law in 2021.

But in the same bill repealing the blasphemy law, Scotland replaced it with another censorial, authoritarian statute which prevents people from speaking out against the dogmas and mantras of today's most dominant religion.

This "hate speech" law immediately became the new blasphemy law.

The legislation made it a crime to "stir up hate" with words or behavior against anyone based on age, religion, disability, transgender identity, sexual orientation, or "variations in sex characteristics." Nobody wants to feel hated. Thankfully, very few like to make others feel hated either. But what is hate, legally speaking? As with almost every piece of "hate speech" legislation, the new law provides no clarity at all about which words can be defined as "stirring up hate," and which can't. The vague and ambiguous law will doubtlessly chill conversations, even in family homes, where the ban on "hate speech" still applies. Could certain statements about biological reality, the need to protect single-sex changing rooms, or beliefs about marriage and human sexuality soon be illegal? Time will tell.

The law came into force on April 1, and many have been anxiously refreshing their social media feeds to see if and when J.K. Rowling will be in trouble. The one-time "Queen of Scots"—and one of the most successful authors of all time—has for years been the target of activist complaints. Rowling challenged the law immediately by tweeting about her beliefs on gender Monday morning, forcing an investigation. With the eyes of the world watching, Police Scotland chose not to proceed with any charges of "hate speech"—this time.

But it's not only Rowling who stands accused of "heresy" against the dominant dogmas of today's political elite. From those who believe that no child was ever "born in the wrong body" to comedians who push the envelope of acceptability, all manner of Scots could inadvertently go beyond the government's accepted speech parameters.

We needn't look too far to see how this goes. In Finland, where hate speech laws have been enforced for several years, I served on the legal team of a grandmother and longtime politician who challenged dominant orthodoxies about marriage and sexuality, and has almost five years of legal battles to show for it. Päivi Räsänen tweeted a Bible verse in 2019, questioning her church leadership's decision to sponsor a Helsinki Pride event. The state prosecuted her on charges filed under the "war crimes and crimes against humanity" section of the Finish Criminal Code. Despite being fully acquitted twice, her case has been appealed to the Supreme Court .

Meanwhile, in Mexico, ADF International has backed the legal defense of two separate politicians, both prosecuted for upholding their beliefs in the biological reality of women on X (formerly Twitter ). Both Gabriel Quadri and Rodrigo Ivan Cortes were convicted of "gender-based political violence" for their words, and placed on an offenders register. We are appealing their cases to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The ripple of censorship is spreading. South Africa recently passed a "hate speech" law. Ireland may well be next in line. A bill sitting before the Irish parliament would even criminalize memes found on someone's phone if deemed to be offensive by the state. In Canada, legislation has been put forward that could put citizens under house arrest if it's suspected that they could commit "hate." Those found guilty of posting alleged "hate speech" online could have to pay victims up to C$20,000 in compensation.

The lesson of history is clear. The state cannot be trusted to decide what speech is acceptable and what is not. Inevitably, the "unacceptable views," as Justin Trudeau once called them, will be those that go against government policy and political and cultural orthodoxies. With the sorry case of Thomas Aikenhead having occurred almost 350 years ago, we thought we had learned this lesson in the West. Sadly, it looks like we going to have to learn it all over again.

The heresy trials are back. This time, "hate speech" laws will punish anyone who blasphemes against the new church of "woke."

Paul Coleman (@Paul_B_Coleman) is the Executive Director of ADF International, and author of "Censored: How European Hate Speech Laws are Threatening Freedom of Speech."

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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Author Sophie Kinsella reveals that she’s had brain cancer since 2022: ‘All is stable’

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Bestselling author Sophie Kinsella revealed Wednesday that she was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2022 and since then has undergone surgery, radiation and chemotherapy to treat the aggressive disease.

The “Confessions of a Shopaholic” series scribe, whose real name is Madeleine Sophie Wickham, held off on publicly sharing her glioblastoma diagnosis so that her five children could “adapt to our ‘new normal,’” she said in a statement on her website and social media .

To my dear readers and followers. I’ve wanted for a long time to share with you a health update and I’ve been waiting for the strength to do so.💛 pic.twitter.com/WJc5LF48rC — Sophie Kinsella (@KinsellaSophie) April 17, 2024

“I’ve wanted for a long time to share with you a health update and I’ve been waiting for the strength to do so. At the end of 2022 I was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a form of aggressive brain cancer,” the novelist wrote. “I did not share this before because I wanted to make sure that my children were able to hear and process the news in privacy and adapt to our ‘new normal.’”

The 50-year-old said she has been cared for by an “excellent team” at University College Hospital in London and has had “successful surgery and subsequent radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which is still ongoing.”

“At the moment all is stable and I am feeling generally very well, though I get very tired and my memory is even worse than it was before!” she added.

The “chick lit” icon, who is married to her business manager, Henry Wickham, also offered thanks to her family and close friends for supporting her, and to the doctors and nurses who treated her. She then turned her attention to her readers.

‘Shopaholic’ crashes into real recession

Hollywood make-believe crashes into real life in ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’

Feb. 3, 2009

“I am also so grateful to my readers for your constant support. The wonderful response to THE BURNOUT has really buoyed me up, during a difficult time,” she wrote, referring to the romance novel that she published in October.

“To everyone who is suffering from cancer in any form I send love and best wishes, as well as to those who support them. It can feel very lonely and scary to have a tough diagnosis, and the support and care of those around you means more than words can say,” she wrote, promising to “be in touch soon” and sharing a photo of herself wishing her friends “greetings from sunny London.”

The prolific author has at least 35 titles to her name (and her pen name) and has sold more than 45 million copies of her books, according to her official biography . Her 2000 novel, “The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic” — known as “Confessions of a Shopaholic” in the U.S.) — follows financial journalist Rebecca Bloomwood and her compulsive shopping habit, which spawned eight sequels about Becky’s fantastical over-spending exploits. The first two titles in the series were adapted for film in 2009; the “Confessions of a Shopaholic” movie starred Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Krysten Ritter and Joan Cusack.

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The novel, loosely based on the author’s early days as a finance writer, was written after Kinsella published seven novels under her married name, Madeleine Wickham, according to publisher Penguin U.K. “Shopaholic” marked her first foray into romance with her famed nom de plume — a mash-up of her middle name and her mother’s maiden name.

She submitted “Shopaholic” to her Wickham publishers in secret and quietly enjoyed its massive success. She published two more installments under her pen name before revealing her identity to her publishers in 2003 during the release of her standalone novel “Can You Keep a Secret?,” which was adapted into a 2019 film starring Alexandra Daddario.

Kinsella’s 11 stand-alone novels include “The Undomestic Goddess” and “My Not So Perfect Life.” She has since released several children’s books, including the “Fairy Mom & Me” series and “Finding Audrey.”

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March 26, 2024

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Nardine Saad covers breaking entertainment news, trending culture topics, celebrities and their kin for the Fast Break Desk at the Los Angeles Times. She joined The Times in 2010 as a MetPro trainee and has reported from homicide scenes, flooded canyons, red carpet premieres and award shows.

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