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FREE April Speech Therapy Calendar to plan themed therapy activities

April Speech Therapy Lesson Plans: Fun Easter, weather, bugs, and Earth Day!

Celebrate the month of April with themes that include bugs, Easter, Earth Day, and changing weather. Themed activities keep kids engaged throughout the year and

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A FREE list of picture books to use in articulation therapy - r books for articulation

31 R Books for Articulation Therapy That Kids Will Love

While looking for R books for articulation, consider these titles to make speech therapy sessions fun! There are tons of fun titles to practice initial,

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Spring rainbow craft for speech therapy

Rainbow Craft For Speech Therapy

Easy Spring Rainbow Craft Honestly, I don’t do a lot of crafts in my speech therapy room. I’m a high-efficiency, low-time wasting, get-a-lot-of-reps-in kind of

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10 Pre-reading strategies to help struggling readings improve comprehension #readingstrategies

Pre-Reading Strategies for Comprehension

Strategies For Reading Comprehension Admittedly, as a young SLP I worked on reading comprehension like this: read a cute seasonal book, then ask recall questions.

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This is the best SH book list for articulation therapy. This has all the children's picture books that I use in speech therapy to target the SH sound.

SH Book List For Articulation Therapy with 16 Fun Books!

Books are a fantastic tool to captivate your students while practicing essential speech sounds! This post will give you a curated list of fun and

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Free March Lesson Plans for Speech Therapy

March Speech Therapy Lesson Plans: Fun Spring Themes and Activities

With March comes the excitement of spring and plenty of fun themes for speech therapy. Use the March Speech Therapy Lesson Plans below to add

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Hands-On Speech Therapy: LEGOs

Research supports using building bricks. In one recent experiment, researchers instructed mothers to use relevant spatial language as they played with their 5-year-old children. The

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February Speech Therapy Lesson Plans with Hearts, History & Dental Health

Adding fun and variety to your February speech therapy lesson plans is essential this time of year. Below, you’ll find creative ways to incorporate Valentine’s

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10 wordless picture books to use in speech therapy

How to Use 12 Wordless Picture Books in Speech Therapy

Wordless picture books can be an incredible tool for speech therapy sessions, offering endless opportunities for language development. Without text, these books encourage students to

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Download this free planning calendar for January themes to incorporate into your speech therapy sessions!

January Speech Therapy Lesson Plans: Adorable Snowmen, Hibernation, Penguins & More

January is a great time to bring fun, engaging themes into your speech therapy sessions. Incorporate winter favorites like penguins, hibernating animals, snowmen, and special

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7 ways to use a Christmas Tree in Speech Therapy

Play-Based Speech Therapy: Christmas Tree activity

I don’t do that many crafts in my speech room, but I do love intentional hands-on, play-based activities that let me target multiple goals. This

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4 Speech Therapy Thanksgiving Books and Fun Activities for November

Looking to bring the Thanksgiving spirit into your speech therapy sessions? Speech therapy Thanksgiving books are perfect for sparking language-rich discussions, targeting vocabulary, and connecting

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ashleyrossislp

Language-based literacy intervention for SLPs.
Turn picture books into targeted therapy sessions.
Evidence-based strategies you can use tomorrow.

When a student’s retell is weak, the problem is no When a student’s retell is weak, the problem is not always story grammar. Sometimes the student understands the story but lacks the vocabulary needed to talk about it.

Mental state verbs help students explain characters’ thoughts, feelings, and motivations.

Examples:
• thought
• wondered
• realized

Without these words, character understanding stays hidden.

Causal language helps students connect events and explain relationships between them.

Examples:
• because
• so
• therefore

These words help move retells beyond a simple sequence of events.

Precise vocabulary makes retells more detailed and easier to understand.

Examples:
• enormous (instead of big)
• sprinted (instead of ran)
• exhausted (instead of tired)

Specific words create stronger narratives.

Before targeting retell structure alone, look at the language underneath it.

Do your students have the vocabulary to explain thoughts, connect events, and describe what happened with precision?

Sometimes improving vocabulary is what improves the retell.
Comment “inference” for my favorite books to targe Comment “inference” for my favorite books to target inferential comprehension. Move beyond retelling a story in perfect order. 👏
A child who says /r/ incorrectly is not automatica A child who says /r/ incorrectly is not automatically at risk for reading difficulties.

A child with weak underlying phonological skills might be.

Research has shown for decades that children with persistent speech sound disorders are at greater risk for reading and spelling difficulties, particularly when phonological awareness or language weaknesses are present.

This is why SLPs should be thinking beyond articulation accuracy alone.

The goal is not simply correct production.

The goal is helping children develop the sound based foundation that supports literacy.
We spend a lot of time planning activities, creati We spend a lot of time planning activities, creating extensions, and writing goals, but research has consistently shown that the quality of the text matters.

High quality books expose students to richer vocabulary, more complex sentence structures, stronger story grammar, and deeper ideas worth discussing.

When a book contains meaningful problems, character motivations, and opportunities for prediction and explanation, language intervention becomes more powerful.

A strong book gives you something to work with.

Before choosing your next read aloud, ask yourself:

• Does this book introduce vocabulary students are unlikely to hear in conversation?• Does it give students opportunities to explain why and how?• Does it encourage prediction, perspective taking, or inferencing?• Does it contain a meaningful problem worth discussing?

The right book can do more for language development than the most creative activity paired with the wrong text.
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