Literacy Based Therapy Ideas

By now, I’m sure you all know the benefits of literacy based instruction, both in classrooms and our speech rooms. Centering activities around books is not only functional, it’s evidence-based. A child’s narrative child’s narrative ability can be a predictor of their late literacy skills (Wellman, R.L., et al. (2011), Narrative Ability of Children With Speech Sound Disorders and the Prediction of Later Literacy Skills. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 42, 561-579).

I often use books in my therapy sessions. In fact, I usually use a book a week. Why? Because they are easy to incorporate into sessions and using them will allow you to hit a bunch of therapy goals without trying too hard!

Here are 5 ways you can incorporate books into your speech therapy sessions:

1. Watch story read-alouds on YouTube: Sometimes we’ll do this instead of me reading the books. I like YouTube because you can easily pause it to discuss something or ask questions and it’s free!
2. Borrow books from your library: Head down to your library and grab some different books off the shelf. I have a bunch of books in my office, but sometimes I want something new and different.
3. Use my no prep book companions: I have 3 page, no prep book companions in a bundle here. They target a bunch of different speech/language goals and my students love them! They are easy and quick to use in therapy.
4. Story retell: This is a huge area of oral language! Have students take turns retelling the story you read. Scaffold and cue as needed.
5. Do extension activities: After reading the book during one session, use the next session to do some other activities related to the book. Retell the story again (to see what they can recall after some time has passed), draw a picture related to the story, or read another similar story and compare/contrast it to the first one.

I’m a huge believer that using books in our therapy sessions are amazing! I hope this has given you a couple additional ideas! 🙂