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speech and language teaching concepts for Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus in speech therapy​ ​
Frequent Speech Sounds:

/b/ initial
/s/ final
/dr/ initial
/v/ final
/p/ initial
/j/ medial (pigeon)

Themes:

back to school
vehicles/transportation

Book Details:
Diverse Characters: N/A
Age Recommendation: Early Childhood, Elementary

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

By Mo Willems

When a bus driver takes a break from his route, a very unlikely volunteer springs up to take his place-a pigeon! But you’ve never met one like this before. As he pleads, wheedles, and begs his way through the book, children will love being able to answer back and decide his fate.

This funny back to school and transportation book can be used in speech therapy to address social/emotional issues like persuasion. It is also great for noticing character expressions and for targeting character analysis as well as for text features! Discover more of the speech and language teaching concepts for using Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus in speech therapy below:

Key Teaching Concepts

Narrative Structure:

complete episode

Narrative Concepts:

vocabulary
character analysis
illustration study
inferencing​
social/emotional​
text features​

Vocabulary:

steer, convince, persuade, big deal, bet

Character Analysis:

Pigeon tries to convince us to let him drive the bus by playing on our emotions and trying to make us feel like he deserves to drive it with some guilt-tripping mixed in.

Social/Emotional:

Pigeon tries to persuade and convince us to let him drive the bus even though deep down he knows it’s not safe and won’t happen.

Text Features:

thought bubbles
speech bubbles
capitals
exclamation marks
change in text size
italics

Inferencing:

What do you think Pigeon wants to do?
Why did Pigeon say please and that he’d be careful?
Why does Pigeon say that he will just steer?
What is Pigeon thinking when there is no answer?
How does he feel when he keeps trying but there is no answer?
Why did he peek on the page?
What does Pigeon think will happen when the driver gets back?
What is Pigeon thinking about next?

If you are interested in seeing other back to school and transportation books to use in therapy, then check out the Narrative Teaching Points Book List for a printable copy.