Books, Books, and More Books!

Books are a great way to work on speech and language skills at home! They can be used to work on a variety of skills, such as practicing syllable structures with children with childhood apraxia of speech, expanding utterances with late talkers, perspective taking with autistic and ADHD children, and so much more.

Don’t have these books? That’s ok! Your local library is a great (free!) tool to access these books and many others.

1) Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? By Bill Martin Jr. - A classic book that can be used so many ways.

• Ways to use this book at home:

  • Apraxia - Variety of syllable structures for repetitive practice (i.e. CV words such as see, me). Pause at these words after models in order for the child to practice these syllable structures

  • Receptive language - Vocabulary can be practiced by modeling pointing or gesturing to pictures (i.e Where is the bear?)

  • Expressive language - Predictable text that is repetitive. Model how to read a few pages and pause at particular points in the sentence for the child to fill in (I see…)

2) Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton - A fun, easy to read book that kids will enjoy!

• Ways to use this book at home:

  • Speech Sounds - Phonology can be targeted in this book, such as final consonant deletion (i.e. hat, green, red) or Articulation such as /r/ (red, green)

  • Receptive language - Identifying body parts/clothing and colors can be practiced (i.e. Where is the hat?)

  • Expressive language - This book also has predictable, repetitive text in which you can model and then stop at certain points for the child to fill in. Modeling the exclamatory words would also help to expand their language (i.e. oops!)

3) All Better by Henning Lohein and Bernd Penners - This book has cute removable bandages that make it fun and interactive!

• Ways to use this book at home:

  • Executive Functioning - Perspective taking questions can be asked to identify emotions - (i.e. How do you think the bear is feeling after he got a boo boo? How would you feel?)

  • Receptive language - Wh questions can be practiced (i.e. Where should we put the bandage?); Action verbs can be practiced (i.e. Can you rub/kiss the boo boo?).

  • Expressive language - Model exclamatory words (i.e. Uh oh, Oh no, Ow)

4) Yummy Yucky by Leslie Patricelli

• Ways to use this book at home:

  • Apraxia - Lots of great CVCV syllable structures to practice (i.e. baby, cookie, yummy, yucky).

  • Expressive language - Another book with predictable, repetitive text (every page ends with yummy or yucky). Model how to read a few pages and pause in certain sections for the child to fill in (Cookies are yummy, coffee is…).

  • Executive Functioning - Perspective taking questions can be asked to identify emotions/feelings - (i.e. Does the baby like cookies? Do you think cookies are yummy or yucky?)

5) Poke-a-Dot: Old MacDonald’s Farm by Melissa and Doug (Or any of the Poke a Dot books) - These books are not only interactive, but they provide tactile input for a sensory seeking child.

• Ways to use this book at home:

  • Receptive language - Identifying familiar nouns can be targeted, such as animals (Where is the duck? Can you poke the dot on the duck?)

  • Expressive language - Animal sounds are a great way to increase expressive language. Model animal sounds as the child pops each dot (i.e. Quack, Moo, etc).

There is so much that we can work on while reading books! I will share more books in later posts. But if you have any books that you love to read to your children or clients, I’d love to hear about it! Contact me at jency@playhousespeechtherapy.com.

Jency Chacko, M.S., CCC-SLP is a pediatric speech language pathologist in Texas who serves the Irving, Las Colinas, Valley Ranch areas. She works with a variety of diagnoses including Autism, ADHD, receptive and expressive language delays, and Childhood Apraxia of Speech.