Click for Let’s go, Kitty! website and information on using this book for therapy and teaching.
Using storybooks with built-in speech, language, and pre-reading skills is truly beneficial for young children. What I have found over the years once I began using storybooks in therapy is that often the best books to meet these goals are those written by speech/language pathology authors due to their background in using books to teach speech, language, and pre-reading.
Recently, a new book popped up on my social media, Let’s Go, Kitty! That title rang a bell as I was familiar with Holly Rosensweig’s popular board book, Let’s Go, Puppy! Many SLPs have used this book to promote early sounds and enrich vocabulary. I contacted the author, Holly Rosensweig, speech/language pathologist, asking her to enlighten speech/language pathologists, teachers, and parents on why the new book, Let’s Go, Kitty! is different, and how it will add to the skills learned in Let’s Go, Puppy!
Why another “Let’s Go, ______!” book?
That’s a great question! I was contracted by Ninewise Publishing to write two board books that could both be used with babies and toddlers to promote early communication skills. The two books were always meant to complement one another, but they weren’t necessarily going to be a matching set or series. We made the decision for the second book to be another Let’s Go ____ book following the overwhelmingly positive response to Let’s Go, Puppy!, especially from SLPs! I found that the format of following a pet throughout its day just lends itself extremely well to targeting speech-language skills for many reasons, including: 1) the books can include a sequence of events, making them great for story retell and teaching common elements of a story 2) familiar actions can be represented and acted out by readers 3) a pet’s mischief adds humor, helping to keep little ones engaged 4) there is enough detail to include many early words and allow for basic question/answer while still keeping the illustrations simplistic enough for a baby board book.
I don’t know that a second Let’s Go ____ book would have happened if the illustrator, Emily Rutherford hadn’t been available to illustrate the second one. Her illustration style is just adorable, and she did an incredible job of bringing Puppy to life, while also incorporating the many speech-language elements I requested, but without making any of it seem forced! Last, I knew that little ones who connected with Puppy in book one would love seeing him make a surprise appearance again in the second book… and what goes better with a puppy than a kitty!?
How can these books be used to encourage speech and language skill development?
Let’s Go, Puppy! and Let’s Go, Kitty! were both designed to target the following speech-language skills when read interactively with babies and toddlers (ages birth to three):
-Imitation and production of early speech sounds (ex: /b/, /p/, “oh”) and non-speech sounds (ex: bzzz, shhh)
-Imitation and production of early, functional words (ex: more, help, open)
-Increased utterance length by expanding the book’s text into phrases
-Pointing to basic nouns to build receptive vocabulary and joint attention skills
-Imitation and comprehension of actions/gestures – each two-page spread allows for at least one action to be imitated
-Comprehension and use of a variety of adjectives/opposites (ex: wet/dry), emotions words (ex: happy, mad), and prepositions (ex: in, out)
With preschool and early elementary students, the books can also be used to work on higher-level language skills like answering “wh” and critical-thinking questions, retelling a story, identifying story elements (i.e., character, setting, problem, solution), and describing pictures using complete sentences.
Does Let’s Go, Kitty! include additional speech and language goals?
Both books include a list of the earliest-developing speech sounds and tips for caregivers/educators to use when reading with babies/toddlers. The tips are meant to help caregivers make shared book reading more interactive and promote communication skills with ANY picture book—not just mine! Since they are general techniques (that SLPs know to use while reading and playing with kids), the tips are the same across both books, but with different examples taken from each of the book’s text and illustrations.
When creating baby board books, simplicity is really important— but that can also be limiting in terms of how many early words and actions can be included within one book. So, while both books can be used to address the same speech-language goals, Let’s Go, Kitty! includes different functional words, sounds, actions, and concepts. For example, Puppy! can be used to teach the words/phrases eat, more, ready/set/go, and all done (among others) while Kitty! can be used to teach words like open, push, up, and help. Similarly, where Puppy! can be used to have kids imitate actions/gestures like eating, throwing, and digging in the dirt, Kitty! can be used to have them imitate peek-a-boo, drinking, and climbing a ladder. It was really important to me that every page of Let’s Go, Kitty! would allow babies/toddlers to imitate different actions/gestures than the ones found in Let’s Go, Puppy! Using both books together (i.e., alternating between them or reading them back-to-back) should allow SLPs to introduce just about any early word or concept they might want to target during their early intervention sessions.
Will there be manipulatives suggested for interactive learning?
Yes! The Speech and Smile website carries two Say and Play kits of mini objects designed to be used with Let’s Go, Puppy! and Let’s Go, Kitty! Since the objects are tiny, they are better suited for preschool and early elementary schoolers (vs. babies and toddlers) but are great for expanding the use of my books with slightly older students! The manipulatives can be used to work on just about any speech-language goal—they can be placed on the books’ matching illustrations, used to act out actions in the books, used to target prepositions, used for pretend play, used for describing or comparing/contrasting, used for categorization, used to help with story retell, and the list goes on!
There are also many toys and games that would be ideal to pair with the Let’s Go ___ books. A few ideas are:
-Puppy/kitty stuffed animals or puppets – have them act out the actions of each story
-Battat / B. Toys Critter Clinic or other pretend play vet set to work on open/close and prepositions
-Melissa and Doug wooden sound puzzles featuring pets to work on choices, requesting, and pointing
-Learning Resources Elephant in the Room game– includes rooms of the house and manipulatives such as a cat, mouse, table, chair that match Let’s Go, Kitty! illustrations. Can be used to work on a variety of skills, including prepositions, following directions, and basic categorization
I am a big fan of themed speech therapy sessions, especially when running social/language groups. With preschool and early elementary schoolers, the books can be tied into a “pets” theme and read before or after making multi-step puppy/kitty snacks or crafts, or playing popular games like Picky Kitty, Soggy Doggy, Diggin’ Doggies, and Cat and Mouse.
Will there be more suggestions for caregivers?
On my website storybookconnection.com, caregivers can download a free Early Speech and Language Packet, which has even more suggestions for boosting early communication skills with babies/toddlers. That resource goes more in depth than my books’ tips pages, providing ideas for increasing joint attention and turn-taking, pointing and comprehension skills, and production of early sounds and words. It also includes a giant list of simple, interactive games that SLPs often play with young children during early intervention. SLPs are welcome to share the resource with caregivers/families or other educators. There are also some free printables featuring Puppy and Kitty on my website, and I plan to share even more suggestions and free activities in the future over on my Instagram page (@storybookconnection).