NESCA Speech-Language Pathologist
Books are a great speech-language therapy tool. They can be used to target many different goals for a variety of ages and profiles. With books, children are given context for learning vocabulary, concepts and important story elements. Literacy-based therapy is not only more fun, but research also supports its use in teaching children with speech and language disorders:
- Teaching story elements has been shown to improve oral language production and reading comprehension.
- Teaching within a narrative context can make language learning less demanding, more meaningful and more authentic.
- Students’ comprehension and story retelling/generation skills improved more with contextualized (literacy-based) intervention than decontextualized intervention.
Books can easily be incorporated into life at home, if they are not already a part of the daily routine. Just grab your or your child’s favorite book, or find a YouTube read aloud of it, and have your child help you read it! Be sure to pause throughout the book to talk about the pictures, make inferences about why events are happening and ask a few questions. Don’t be afraid to change the words to match your child’s level of understanding or interests.
My top three favorite winter books to use in speech-language therapy are:
- Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright
A story about a cold and sneezy snowman who melts several times while trying to get warm. His human friends help him by rebuilding him and sharing their winter clothes.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Sneezy-Snowman-Maureen-Wright/dp/1477810544
YouTube Read Aloud: https://youtu.be/iUsHnKSyDH0
Skills that I target and can be incorporated into shared book reading at home:
- Producing subject-verb-object or complex sentences to talk about what is happening.
- Predicting what will happen before and throughout reading (e.g., “Sneezy is drinking hot chocolate, what do you think will happen?”).
- Answering detail (what, where, who, when) and inferential (why) questions.
- Discussing story parts (e.g., characters, setting, problem, solution) and retelling the story.
- Writing using different prompts, such as “My snowman melted because…” or “When I’m cold, I…”.
- The Mitten by Jan Brett
A traditional story about a boy whose grandmother knits him new mittens. He loses one mitten when he is outside playing, and many different animals climb inside to stay warm.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mitten-Jan-Brett/dp/0399231099
YouTube Read Aloud: https://youtu.be/duhj0Op_slo
Skills that I target and can be incorporated into shared book reading at home:
- Sequencing events by talking about the order of animals that climbed into the mitten.
- Creating a craft by printing a mitten and animals, coloring the animals and putting them inside the mitten as you retell the story.
- Watching a different rendition of The Mitten on Vooks.com and comparing and contrasting the two stories using a Venn diagram.
- Producing past tense verbs to describe what happened.
- Making inferences about characters’ emotions and motivations.
- The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
A Caldecott Medal-winning book about a boy’s adventures in the snow when he puts on his snowsuit and goes outside to play.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Snowy-Day-Board-Book/dp/0670867330
YouTube Read Aloud: https://youtu.be/FmZCQfeWjeQ
Skills that I target and can be incorporated into shared book reading at home:
- Telling an original story together by covering up the words on the pages.
- Finding words that contain the child’s target speech sound (i.e., if your child is working on producing the “R” sound, find all the words that contain “R” and practice those).
- Describing character traits of Peter, the main character.
- Discussing cause and effect (e.g., cause: Peter smacked a snow-covered tree, effect: snow fell on Peter’s head).
- Writing using different prompts, such as “On a snowy day, I like to…” or “I can save a snowball by…”.
References:
Davies, P., Shanks, B., & Davies, K. (2004). Improving narrative skills in young children with delayed language development. Educational Review, 56, 271 – 286.
Gillam, S. L., Gillam, R. B., & Reece, K. (2012). Language outcomes of contextualized and decontextualized language intervention: results of an early efficacy study. Language, speech, and hearing services in schools, 43(3), 276–291. https://doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461(2011/11-0022)
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language. A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
About the Author
Abigael Gray has over six years of experience in assessment and treatment of a variety of disorders, including dysphagia, childhood 
apraxia of speech, speech sound disorder, receptive and expressive language disorder, autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She has a special interest and experience in working with children with feeding and swallowing disorders, including transitioning infants to solid foods, weaning from tube feeding, improving sensory tolerance, developing chewing skills, increasing variety and volume of nutritional intake and reducing avoidance behaviors during mealtimes.
To book an appointment or to learn more about NESCA’s Speech & Language Therapy, please fill out our online Intake Form, email NESCA’s Director of Clinical Services Julie Robinson or call 617-658-9800.
Neuropsychology & Education Services for Children & Adolescents (NESCA) is a pediatric neuropsychology practice and integrative treatment center with offices in Newton, Massachusetts, Plainville, Massachusetts, and Londonderry, New Hampshire, serving clients from preschool through young adulthood and their families. For more information, please email info@nesca-newton.com or call 617-658-9800.
