Teletherapy has settled in as a permanent way SLPs work — school contracts, private practice, hybrid caseloads. It removed the printer from the equation, but not the prep: the night-before scramble just moved from the laminator to the download folder. The good news is that articulation, being drill-friendly, is the easiest specialty to run genuinely no-prep over a screen. This article adapts our no-prep system to the video call. (Disclosure: Ga-loo, our generator, appears below.)
The teletherapy materials stack
Three formats cover nearly everything teletherapists actually use: interactive task-card platforms (Boom Cards and similar), slide decks, and screen-shared PDFs. They differ in prep cost:
Interactive decks are engaging but bought-or-built in advance — pre-made prep, with the same search-and-near-miss costs as any marketplace.
Slide decks are flexible but tempt you into building custom slides per student — prep in disguise.
A shared PDF or on-screen list plus your platform’s annotation tools is the true no-prep tier: instant to open, and the interactivity comes from the drawing tools, not the file.
Zero-prep drills that only need a shared screen
List + annotate: share a verified word list for the target — say initial R — and let the student dot-and-say: tap a word, produce it, mark it. Color-code by accuracy with the highlighter.
Hide and seek: cover words with shapes in the annotation layer; each reveal is a trial.
Sentence builder: student picks any two marked words and builds one sentence — instant word-to-sentence level movement.
Screenshot data: save the marked-up screen at session end; the annotation colors are your tally.
Because the lists are pronunciation-verified, you are not proofreading for traps mid-session — the usual hidden cost of improvised teletherapy drill.
Running mixed groups remotely
Group teletherapy is where prep pressure peaks: two or three students, different targets, one shared screen. The no-prep answer is the same separation of game and target that works in person:
Share one generic activity (grid, hide-and-seek shapes, a simple board) and give each student their own word list — open in tabs, one click apart.
Rotate turns by student, switching the visible list as you go; the activity never changes, so instructions happen once.
For data, use one annotation color per student and screenshot at the end — one image captures the whole group’s trials.
Coaching parents without extra prep
Teletherapy often puts a parent within earshot — use it. The last two minutes of a session make a no-cost home program: demonstrate one drill with the exact sheet you are about to send, name the target (“we are practicing /r/ at the start of words”), and set a number (“five words, once a day, mark each try”). A parent who has watched the drill once will actually run it; a parent who receives a PDF cold usually won’t. The sheet itself should need no explanation — short list, tally row, one line of instructions.
When the tech fights back
Student can’t annotate (tablet quirks, permissions): switch to verbal marking — “tell me which word to circle” — you annotate, they produce. The trial count survives.
Screen share lags: drop to audio-first drill from your open word list; the list is for you, the trials are spoken anyway.
Attention drifts: shrink the visible set — five words at a time, then reveal the next five. The hide-and-seek pattern doubles as pacing.
The take-home problem — and the PDF answer
Teletherapy’s weak point is carryover: no worksheet leaves the room, because there is no room. The fix is a sheet that works twice — on screen during the session, on paper at home after it. Ga-loo generates that sheet in about a minute: one page, large type, high contrast, a single flat illustration, every word phonetically checked with the report shown to you. Run the drill on screen share, then send the same PDF to the parent — designed to print cheaply at home, too (see Low-Ink Speech Therapy Worksheets).
The privacy rule for shared screens
On a shared, sometimes recorded screen, every open tab is visible and every file name is readable. Materials should never carry a student’s name — a screen-shared worksheet titled with a child’s full name is a privacy incident waiting for a screenshot. This is why Ga-loo worksheets are zero-PII by design: a sheet is defined by sound, position, age band and theme, and there is simply no field for a name. Whatever tools you use for teletherapy, adopt the same rule.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need special materials for teletherapy articulation?
Less than the marketplaces suggest. Articulation drill needs a trusted word list, a way to mark trials, and something that keeps turns fun — screen annotation covers all three. Purpose-built interactive decks are nice, not necessary.
How do I collect data during remote sessions?
Make the annotation layer your tally sheet: one color per student (or per accuracy level), mark as they produce, screenshot before you close the share. The screenshot is time-stamped, complete, and faster than a separate data app mid-session.
What about students who need hands-on manipulation?
Flip the direction: instead of sharing your screen, have the household provide the manipulatives — toys, kitchen objects, drawings — and keep the target list on your side. You supply the structure and the verified words; their living room supplies the hands-on part.
Can parents use the same materials between sessions?
That is the point of the two-life PDF: drill it on screen together first, then send the identical sheet home. The parent has already watched the routine, so the sheet needs no instructions beyond the line printed on it.
Your teletherapy no-prep kit
Bookmarked word lists for every active target — one click from drill.
Annotation tools you have practiced with — they are the game board now.
A generator for the take-home layer — try it free, no card required.
The 10-minute Monday batch from the hub article — it works identically for a remote caseload.