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speech and language teaching concepts for I'm Trying to Love Spiders in speech therapy​ ​
Frequent Speech Sounds:

/s/ blends (spider, squish, smash, struck, swinging, study)
/er/ medial and final

Themes:

spiders
interactive

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

I’m Trying to Love Spiders

By Bethany Barton

I’m Trying to Love Spiders will help you see these amazing arachnids in a whole new light, from their awesomely excessive eight eyes, to the seventy-five pounds of bugs a spider can eat in a single year! And you’re sure to feel better knowing you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than being fatally bit by a spider. Comforting, right? No? Either way, there’s heaps more information in here to help you forget your fears . . . or at least laugh a lot!

This interactive spiders book can be used in speech therapy to address illustration study and text features. It is also great for noticing sequencing and for predicting! Discover more of the speech and language teaching concepts for using I’m Trying to Love Spiders in speech therapy below:

Key Teaching Concepts

Narrative Structure:

complete episode

Narrative Concepts:

vocabulary​
character analysis​
sequencing​
illustration study​
inferencing​
predicting​
verbs (action)
verbs (present progressive)
text features​

Sequencing:

order of attempts to try to like spiders

Vocabulary:

silk, scopulae, arachnid, venomous, venom, species, recluse, fatal, rare

Character Analysis:

The boy works hard to change his opinion about spiders and ends up finding them helpful and lovely, not icky and gross at the end.

Grammar:

verbs (action)
verbs (present progressive)

Text Features:

change in text size
ellipses
capitals
exclamation marks
arrows
actions shown in drawn markings
diagrams
facts
spider/bug labels
underlines
change in text color

Inferencing:

How does he feel about spiders?
Why does he want to think of them as bug ninjas?
How will that help him?
Why is he trying to like spiders?
How will focusing on spiders’ super powers help?
How can spiders be helpful?
Why do you think spiders get a “bad rep”?

Predicting:

What do you think he will try next to try to like spiders?
Do you think focusing on spider superpowers will help? Why or why not?
Do you think petting a spider will work? Why or why not?
What do you think will make him like spiders?

If you are interested in seeing other spiders books to use in therapy, then check out the Themed Key Teaching Points Book List for a printable copy.