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speech and language teaching concepts for The Summer Visitors in speech therapy
Frequent Speech Sounds:

/b/ initial (bear)
/f/ initial (family)
/l/ initial (lake)
/m/ medial (summer)
/air/ final (bear)

Themes:

Summer
wordless

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

The Summer Visitors

By Karel Hayes

This follow-up to the successful The Winter Visitors, traces the interactions between a family of bears and a human family during their summer stay at a lake cottage. Told primarily through illustration, with only a few dozen words in the book, children and parents (and grandparents) alike will delight in following the antics of the bumbling bears as they enjoy the comforts of cottage life, but also try to avoid detection by their human hosts.

This engaging and funny Summer book can be used in speech therapy to target inferencing and predicting. It is also great for focusing on character analysis. Discover more of the speech and language teaching concepts for using The Summer Visitors in speech therapy below: 

Key Teaching Concepts

Narrative Structure:

nearly wordless

Narrative Concepts:

character analysis
sequencing
illustration study
inferencing
social/emotional
predicting

Sequencing:

order of events that took place when the “visitors” arrived to the cabin

Vocabulary:

visitor, unpack, Summer, dock, laundry, care, share, cottage

Character Analysis:

The family visits their cottage for the summer, but the reader learns who the real residents are of the cottage.

Social/Emotional:

The “summer visitors” feel happiness to be at their cottage for a vacation.

family
excitement
confusion and surprise
facial expressions and body language

Inferencing:

Why does the family go to the cottage during the summer?
What do you think it feels like outside?
How do you think the family feels to be at their cottage?
How do you think the bears feel at the end of the story?

Predicting:

Will the family find out the bears are at the cottage too?
What will the family do next during their stay at the cottage?
Who took the cake from the table?
Will the bears eat the food the family cooked?
What will the bears do when it rains?
What will happen to the kite?
Where is the family going in the end?

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