Wordless Picture Books for Speech Therapy

Wordless picture books are in a word, amazing. They can really be used with a variety of ages.

There is a wealth of research that supports the use of wordless picture books for oral language development. This article discusses how children “can navigate the story on their own and bring in their own understanding of the world.” We know that oral language is closely tied to literacy and vice versa.

I love that there are commercially available wordless picture books (my favorite is The Snowman), but I was finding that for some of my students they were too visually distracting. I set out to create some that were a little easier to use. I first started creating repetitive ones, where only one thing changed, so the student could have a carrier phrase and just change one item. Then I branched out and did ones that had more of a storyline.

Each book includes a ready-made story that you can choose to use or not use. You can tell the ones that have a storyline, because I marked which ones they are (there are 19 repetitive ones and 11 with storylines). Below are some of the ones that are more repetitive:

Below are some of the ones with storylines:

What I love about these is that you can work on WH questions, pronouns, grammar, describing, and so much more!! The possibilities are really endless. There is a great variety of seasonal and non-seasonal ones, so you could probably use one a week for almost the entire school year!

If you want to check out my product that includes 30 wordless picture books, click here! If you want to try before you buy, click here to download a free sample.

Do you use wordless picture books in therapy? Let me know!