You probably already know that books are AMAZING therapy tools! They’re great for targeting just about anything, AND they are effective with so many different populations including neurotypical, English Language Learners, autistic, at-risk, and more! (Spencer & Peterson, 2020).
But HOW do you effectively use books in speech? The internet is full of ideas for how to use books in speech, but these are my TOP 3 tips, especially if you’re just getting started.
3 Quick Tips for Getting Started with Literacy-Based Speech Therapy
- Pre-teach
- Read aloud while emphasizing the targets
- Additional activities for generalization
Quick Tip #1: Pre-teach
What do I mean by “pre-teach?” Pre-teach means discussing the speech targets and vocabulary relevant to the story BEFORE you read the story. Background knowledge is CRITICAL for students to get the most out of the story.
Teach your students the vocabulary and crucial components of the story (such as the setting, cultural differences, the holiday it portrays, etc.). Teach your students how to listen for their target speech sound and how to produce it.
There is research that talks about Scarborough’s Reading Rope that depicts the important aspects of reading comprehension. There are two complex strands that are comprised of subtopics. These two strands are “language comprehension” and “word recognition.”
Word recognition is then broken up into three subtopics including phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition.
Language comprehension is broken up into five areas including background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures (e.g., syntax and semantics), verbal reasoning (e.g., inferences, metaphors, etc.), and literacy knowledge (e.g., print concepts, etc.).
For students to fully understand and comprehend the text, it is VITAL they have the background knowledge support that they need.
Quick Tip #2: Read the Book Aloud While Over-Emphasizing the Speech Targets
This is relatively easy to do for articulation and phonological processes. Just make sure to overaccentuate the targets when you say them.
For articulation and phonological processes, you can also incorporate hand gestures to indicate the sound. These are often referred to as “visual phonics.” There are several specific programs out there, but you can use your own as long as you are consistent and the hand motions are meaningful for you and the student.
Language skills can be a little trickier to draw attention to. Accentuate the target with your voice and then have a slight pause to give students the chance to process what they’ve heard.
Have students acknowledge they heard their speech and language target(s) by raising their hand or tapping the table. This helps keep students engaged during the read aloud.
Quick Tip #3: Additional Activities for Additional Practice and Generalization
It is super important to have additional practice activities after the story. Remember, the story is just a tool to help introduce and model the speech and language targets. However, students still need a chance to practice the skill(s) multiple times in order to learn it and even more practice to generalize it into other contexts.
Practice activities can be super simple like hiding your target speech words around the room so students are doing some gross motor movements while still practicing their speech sounds.
If you are targeting verbs, practice acting them out.
The easiest way to create activities is by trying to see if you can implement the speech and language targets during a fine motor, sensory-based, or gross motor activity.
Throw the target words in a simple rice sensory bin. Don’t love the mess of a rice sensory bin? Use something easier to clean up like larger wads of paper. Or, just put the target words in a brown paper bag and take turns pulling one out to practice.
These are just three quick tips for effectively using books in speech therapy.
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RESEARCH REFERENCES:
Spencer, T. D. & Petersen, D. (2020). Narrative intervention: Principles to practice. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 51, 1081-1096. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_LSHSS-20-00015
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