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speech and language teaching concepts for The Very Stuffed Turkey in speech therapy
Frequent Speech Sounds:

/er/ medial
/k/ medial
/f/
/g/ initial

Themes:

Thanksgiving
inclusion
friendship

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

The Very Stuffed Turkey

By Katharine Kenah

A Thanksgiving story featuring a large turkey with a big problem… he’s been invited to EVERYONE’S home for dinner! With five homes to visit — Horse’s, Pig’s, Sheep and Goat’s, Cow’s, and Mouse’s –Turkey knows there’ll be a ton of food to eat. But there’ll also be friends and their families who can’t wait to celebrate the holiday with Turkey! Can this very plump bird make it through every meal without bursting?

This sweet Thanksgiving book about friendship and inclusion is great for character analysis. The repetitive text in this book also makes this book perfect for engaging your students! Discover more of the speech and language teaching concepts for using The Very Stuffed Turkey in speech therapy below:

Key Teaching Concepts

Narrative Structure:

complete episode

Narrative Concepts:

vocabulary
theme/message
sequencing
adjectives
verbs (regular past tense)
verbs (compound phrases)
complex sentence structure
character analysis
phonological awareness
repetitive text

Sequencing:

order of friends visited
order of Thanksgiving Day activities
order of foods eaten

Vocabulary:

gobbled, trot, delightful, peeking, feeling, feast

Character Analysis:

Turkey says, “yes” to every Thanksgiving dinner invitation because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. He planned on pacing himself at each meal, but couldn’t help himself because the food was so delicious. Turkey also felt included at each dinner and enjoyed feeling like he was part of everyone’s family.

Figurative Language:

puns (gobbled up, to tired to trot)
similes (as colorful as candy)
metaphor (use him as a balloon)

Grammar:

adjectives
verbs (regular past tense)
verbs (linguistic)
verbs (mental state)
verbs (compound phrases)
complex sentence structure

Text Features:

repetitive text
elipsis
exclamation points
repeated word, “wonderful” is a different color than the rest of the text to add emphasis on the feeling

Phonological Awareness:

alliterations

Predicting:

Do you think Turkey will be able to eat that much?

Problem Solving:

Turkey is invited to all of his friends’ Thanksgiving dinners. He plans out the day accordingly to ensure that he is able to attend each dinner. He also plans to pace himself and stretches his tummy in hopes it will help him eat at each meal.

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