One of our clinicians recently posted on our Jostle intranet that they were in a position to buy children’s books for therapeutic purposes and asked for recommendations from the rest of our clinicians. While we often have great clinical conversations among ourselves, this one was especially fun because it was the first one that involved our new colleagues from Buckendorf Associates (the future Hello Clinic). The suggestions were so great that I thought I’d go public with them. After all, this sort of information is best when it’s shared far and wide, right?
As usual, we’re not getting anything from any of these books or from their sales. We just honest to goodness like them! So, without further ado, here are our favorite 36 kids books for speech therapy:
From Kathleen, clinician at The Hello Clinic
Chalk, Bill Thomson
The Chicken Thief, Beatrice Rodriguez
Shh We Have a Plan, Chris Haughton
The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, Mordicai Gernstein
Good Night Gorilla, Peggy Rathmann
Duck & Goose, Tad Hills
The Lion’s Share, Matthew McElligott
Not a Stick, Antoinette Portis
Not a Box, Antoinette Portis
Hooray for Hat, Brian Won
A Boy and HIs Jaguar by Alan Rabinowitz and Catia Chien is a really great (and true!) story if you have kids with fluency goals
From Sharon Soliday, founder and CEO
When I was working with adolescents I purchased hard copies of Cliff Notes of typical books read at the middle & high school (Romeo & Juliet, Diary of Anne Frank, etc.) It really let us cut to comprehension and sequencing and other pre-teaching tasks to assist students accessing general ed curriculum.
From Lori, clinician at The Hello Clinic and in the schools
Pete the Cat books, various authors
The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson
Pout Pout Fish, Deborah Diesen and Dan Hanna
Flight of the Dodo, Peter Brown
Graphic novels have become really popular….I have used one called Chi’s Sweet Home (Kanata Konami) that has very little language but has a good visual story and wrote a story with kids to go with it.
For middle readers, I like Wonder (R.J. Palacio) and Petey (Ben Mikaelsen). The main character in Wonder has a “facial deformity,” and the main character in Petey has CP.
From Melissa, clinician in the schools
I like repetitive stories for pre-k like Brown Bear, Brown Bear (Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle) or the Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle).
From Laura, clinician at The Hello Clinic
The Watermelon Seed, Greg Pizzoli
Escape of Marvin the Ape, Caralyn Buehner and Mark Buehner
Circus Ship, Chris Van Dusen
the Mercy Watson series (simple chapter books with great illustrations), Kate DiCamillo
A Piece of Cake, Cupcake Brown
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith
Click Clack Moo Cows That Type, Doreen Cronin
Snowman at Night (lots of s-blends and verbs), Caralyn Buehner and Mark Buehner
Shh! We Have a Plan, Chris Haughton
the Elephant and Piggie series, Mo Willems
Rainstorm (wordless picture book),
Mustache Baby, Bridget Heos and Joy Ang
That is Not a Good Idea, Mo Willems
The Very Cranky Bear, Nick Bland
And myself? A few years ago, I saw Dr. Laura Justice speak on emergent literacy and fell in love. She co-authored this *totally free* Read It Again curriculum that uses common children’s books to target pre-literacy and speech-language targets. I’ve implemented in varying ways in a few different districts with great success, and have even taught parents to use it during home visits. All of these books are, of course, just the tip of the iceberg. As Laura said at the end of her post, “Gosh, there are so many…I could go on and on!” If you’re a kids book lover like we are, be sure to check out all of our Books We Love series here on the blog!
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