The workload of school-speech-language pathologists has increased dramatically in the last few years in terms of the number of students seen, the severity of problems, paperwork, and the increased roles and responsibilities. How is it possible to manage and still do a good job for our students? In the area of reading, the answer lies in the use of storybooks and how we use them.
According to 2001 position statement of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), some of the many roles and responsibilities of speech-language pathologists in regard to reading is the identification of children at risk for reading and writing problems, and assessment and intervention. Responsibilities for literacy intervention are “to provide research-based, balanced, culturally appropriate, developmentally appropriate, needs-based, and curriculum-relevant intervention.”
Regarding words in print and print recognition, there is a positive influence of shared book reading, research indicates. According to the clinical implications of a study by L. Justice and H. Ezell, the intervention impact was “more profound for those children who had regular, adult-mediated interactions with print during storybook reading.”(2)
The storybook is a natural approach and is good for some children.
However, research indicates that those who are at greatest risk for reading disabilities derive greater benefits from explicitly taught phonemic awareness than through incidental teaching, research suggests. The more structured approach is not always developmentally appropriate as it may lose its contextual relevance.
The hybrid approach combines natural storybook reading with structure and control by the speech pathologist. How can the use of storybooks that are more developmentally appropriate, more culturally appropriate, research-based, needs-based, and curriculum-relevant be organized to teach explicitly? The answer lies in understanding what to look for in storybooks, arranging the information in a spreadsheet or in a template for ease of use in a therapy program.
Initially, get a list of books appropriate for Pre-K through kindergarten. A good source of speech therapy storybooks and educational children’s stories by speech/language pathologists can be found in the book Speech-Language Pathologists as Publishers and Writers and can be downloaded with a subscription at https://www.slpstorytellers.com/register-2/.
Look for books that lend themselves to phonemic awareness activities, articulation activities, and language activities. Keep in mind that this is an ongoing activity and later the collected information will be in a handy format for therapy.
Scan the books and list the skills, sounds and other relevant information used in therapy. Look for the following features:
- Topics of interest to young children and topics that lend themselves to themed activities, i.e. animals, rainforest, foods, etc.
- Repetition of dialogue and/or words
- Words that can be used at each level of the phonological awareness level, i.e. word, syllable, speech sound including onset-rhyme
- Speech sounds that are repeated frequently and in various positions for articulation
- Big bold print
- Print embedded in illustrations
- Few words per page
- Language skills such as attributes of colors and numbers, antonyms and synonyms, comparisons, regular and irregular plurals, regular and irregular verbs, “wh” questions, increasing MLU, sentence structure, etc.
Use the above information to choose the books that will help meet the responsibilities of speech-language pathologists as ASHA states in its position statement. For convenience and ease of use, develop a template for the phonological awareness and language skills found in each book that will be used for developing a storybook therapy program. A sample template is listed at the end of the article.
The use of storybooks for therapy is contextually relevant and developmentally appropriate and is a good transition to the regular curriculum for speech and language students. Many speech-language pathologists who are very creative with language and words can write their own stories with the specific sounds and skills they are addressing and put it into a template or spreadsheet. Pictures for the stories can be easily downloaded from the internet.
Here is a sample taken from the storybook Can a Toucan Hoot Too?
I. Materials needed
II. Familiarization Activity
Example: Rainforest Activity – Senses
Feeling:
Wind (fan) – Talk about fast and slow.
Water (rain) – Tell the children (sitting in a circle) that you will go around and
sprinkle them with water from the leaves while their eyes are closed
and they are to pretend they are in a rainforest. Tell them to feel the
raindrops. Talk about wet/dry and cold/warm.
Coconut – Allow the children to feel the moist coconut on the inside of the
shell and the hard outer shell. Talk about wet/dry, hard/soft, smooth/
rough and hairy.
Hearing:
Thunder, rain, frogs, crickets, toucan – Demonstrate all the sounds before
the children close their eyes so they will not be frightened. Then,
have them close their eyes. Make the various sounds and let the children
guess the sounds. Allow the children to make the sounds with the frogs
and crickets.
Tasting:
Coconut, vanilla, coconut macaroons
Smelling:
Coconut, vanilla
Seeing:
Orchid, vanilla bean, vanilla extract, animals, birds, butterflies, trees
III. Vocabulary List – This can be words from the book or words that relate to the story.
When you come up with words from the book you can add words that rhyme with
those in the book.
IV. Vocabulary List by Sound
Example:
/l/ Initial: leaves, lilies, lizard
Medial: lilies, gorilla, elephant
Final: owl, beetle
V. Language List
List the skills that are either in the book or can be related to the theme in some way.
V. Exercises at Different Levels of Phonological Awareness
Animal/Environmental Sound Level Awareness Activities
- Locate the sound
- Identify the sounds
- Identify the sounds and their position left to right
- Same or different sounds
- Count the animal or person sounds
Word Awareness Level Activities
- Count the words
- Listen for words
- Listen for same or different words
- Listen for missing words in a sequence of words
- Listen for missing words in a sentence
- Listen for a different word out of a 3-word sequence
- Blend words to create compound words
Syllable Awareness Level Activities
- Count the syllables
- Delete a syllable
- Add a missing syllable
- Blend syllables to create words
Speech Sound Awareness Level Activities
- Count the sounds
- Listen for same or different initial sounds
- Listen for missing sounds
- Listen for specific initial sounds
- Omit the initial sound in a word
- Add an initial sound
- Substitute an initial sound
- Listen for specific final sounds
- Omit the final sound in a word
- Add the final sound
- Substitute a final sound
- Onset-rhyme
- Blend sounds to create words
To access Can a Toucan Hoot Too? and the Can a Toucan Hoot Too Workbook go to https://www.slpstorytellers.com/register-2/ and subscribe. You can download all along with other storybooks for your speech and language goals.
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2001). Roles and responsibilities of speech-language pathologists with respect to reading and writing in children and adolescents (guidelines). Rockville, MD: Author
Justice, L. and Ezell, H. Use of Storybook Reading to Increase Print Awareness in At-Risk Children, American Journal of Speec-Language Pathology, Vol. 11, pgs. 17-29. February 2002.
Robertson, Shari and Davig, Helen. Read with Me! StressFree Strategies for Building Language and Literacy, Eau Claire, WI, Thinking Publications.
Carlson, Lavelle. Speech/Language Pathologists as Writers and Publishers, www.slpstorytellers.com.
Torgerson, J. K., R. K. Wagner, C. A. Rashotte, A. W. Alexander, and T. Conway, 1997. Preventative and remedial interventions for children with severe reading disabilities. Learning Disabilities: A Multi-Disciplinary Journal 8: 51-62.