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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
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How-to

rich-vocabulary-for-your-speech-therapy

How to Select Rich Vocabulary for Your Speech Therapy Sessions – Episode 42

wordless-picture-books

How to Use Wordless Picture Books in Your Speech Therapy Sessions – Episode 35

key-teaching-points

How To: A Deeper Look At Book Selection Using Our Key Teaching Points – Episode 28

assess-phonological-awareness

How to Assess Phonological Awareness – Episode 25

assess-narrative-language

How to Assess Narrative Language – Episode 20

forming-groups

How to Form Groups and Collect Data – Episode 14

older-students-using-picture-books

How to Get Older Students to “Buy Into” Picture Books – Episode 7

literacy-based-approach

How to Implement a Literacy-Based Speech Therapy Approach – Episode 3

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Here’s why this matters clinically: Children with

Here’s why this matters clinically: Children with language disorders need explicit exposure to sophisticated vocabulary words WITH contextual support. Picture books provide rich, rare vocabulary alongside illustrations and narrative context that make these words learnable. This contextualized presentation is exactly what helps children build the foundation to eventually understand these words in more abstract, academic contexts.

You cannot build inferencing skills on a shaky fou

You cannot build inferencing skills on a shaky foundation.
I used to wonder why my students struggled so much with “why” questions during read-alouds.
Turns out? I was asking them to do high-level comprehension work without teaching them the FRAMEWORK that makes it possible.
That framework is story grammar.
Story grammar is the predictable structure that holds narratives together:
* Setting (who, where, when)
* Problem/Initiating Event
* Internal Response (feelings/reactions)
* Plan → Attempts → Consequence → Resolution
Our students with language impairments can list events: “First this happened, then this, then this.”
But they can’t tell you WHY the character made that choice or HOW the problem connects to the solution.
Because they don’t understand the architecture of stories.
When we teach story grammar explicitly—naming these elements, pointing them out across books, helping students identify them—we give them a mental template for EVERY story they encounter.
Then the magic happens:
“Why” questions make sense because they understand problems drive character choices.
Predictions become logical because they see the attempt-consequence pattern.
Themes emerge because they connect problems to resolutions.
Story grammar is WHERE we start. It’s the foundation for literal comprehension, inferential thinking, predictions, theme identification—all of it.
Research confirms this (Petersen et al., 2010): explicit story grammar instruction significantly improves narrative comprehension for students with language disorders.
So before you get frustrated that your student can’t answer inferencing questions, ask yourself: have I explicitly taught them the story structure that makes inferencing possible?
Start with the foundation. Build from there.
Who else is adding story grammar to their sessions? 🙋‍♀️

Comment SLP list to get this freebie! I promise yo

Comment SLP list to get this freebie! I promise your future self will thank you when you come back from Thanksgiving break!

Part 2: More books that FORCE students to infer Be

Part 2: More books that FORCE students to infer
Because literal comprehension isn’t enough.
Real comprehension requires inferencing:
→ Understanding WHY characters act
→ Predicting what happens next
→ Connecting causes to effects
→ Reading between the lines
These 3 books require it:
Doctor DeSoto → Can you trust the fox?
Click, Clack, Moo → Infer negotiation strategies
Bad Case of Stripes → Connect problem to cause

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