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Home
About
- Meet Ashley
- Privacy Policy
Blog
- Newest
- Literacy-Based Speech Therapy
- Monthly Therapy Plans
  - January
  - February
  - March
  - April
  - May
  - June
  - July
  - August
  - September
  - October
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- Crafts
- Organization
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- Seasonal
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December

December Speech Therapy Lesson Plans: Festive Plans to Get into the Spirit

Are you ready for all things holiday? This month, the kids will get to experience the fun of the holidays as they boost their confidence

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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.

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.

One of the easiest ways to increase the language d

One of the easiest ways to increase the language demands of a read aloud is to change the questions you ask.

Who, what, where, and when questions have a place, especially for establishing understanding of the text. If every question stays at that level, students may never be asked to explain their thinking.

How and why questions encourage students to infer, connect ideas, explain relationships, and support their answers with evidence from the story.

Sequencing a story is a real skill. It builds temp

Sequencing a story is a real skill. It builds temporal awareness and it gives you something measurable, especially with younger students or those with emerging language.
But it has a ceiling.
Students with DLD often show the biggest gaps in causal reasoning and character motivation, and those gaps won’t surface on a sequencing task. Narrative macrostructure, the parts that capture why events happen and how a character’s goal drives the story, is what predicts reading comprehension outcomes down the line.
The shift isn’t about abandoning sequencing. It’s about knowing when a student is ready for more and making sure the goals reflect that.

I am not telling you to toss your favorite books.

I am not telling you to toss your favorite books. 😅The Old Lady series is engaging, kids love it, and it has a place in therapy. But if you are reaching for books that offer rich, deep language value, they are a limited tool because the structure really only gives children one opportunity to predict a confirmed outcome, and predicting and inferencing are not the same skill. Inferencing is a higher level language skill, and it deserves books that give children room to read between the lines, construct meaning from implied information, and sit with complexity. The question is not whether a book is fun or familiar. The question is whether it is actually doing the clinical work you need it to do.

📚Predicting: I Went Walking by Sue Williams, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen, and Jump, Frog, Jump! by Robert Kalan.
📚Inferencing: The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig, Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts, Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg, and Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson.
📚Both: Enemy Pie by Derek Munson, Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, The Stray Dog by Marc Simont, and Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini

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