Search Results for: Picture books

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And Now on the Value of Wordless Picture Books

Today I am writing on one of my favorite topics: how to use wordless picture books for narrative assessment and treatment purposes in speech language pathology.  I love wordless picture books (or WLPBs as I refer to them) for a good reason and its not just due to their cute illustrations.  WLPBs are so flexible that use can use them for both assessment and treatment of narratives.  I personally prefer the Mercer Meyer  series: ‘A Boy, a dog, a frog and a friend’ for sentimental reasons (they were the first WLPBs I used in grad school) but some of you may want to use a few others which is why I’ll be proving a few links containing lists of select picture books for you to choose from at the end of this post.

So how do I use them and with which age groups?  Well, believe it or not you can start using them pretty early with toddlers and go all the way through upper elementary years. For myself, I found them to be most effective tools for children between 3-9 years of age.  During comprehensive language assessments I use WLPBs in the following way.  First I read a script based on the book. Depending on which WLPBs you use you can actually find select scripts online instead of creating your own.  For example, if you choose to use  the “Frog Series” by Mercer Meyer, the folks  at SALT SOFTWARE already done the job for you and you can find those  scripts HERE in both English and Spanish with audio to boot. 

After I read/play the script, I ask the child to retell the story (a modified version of dynamic narrative assessment if you will) to see what their narrative is like.  I am also looking to see whether the child is utilizing story telling techniques appropriate for his/her age.

For example,  I expect a child between 3-4 years of age to be able to tell a story which contains 3 story grammar components (e.g., —Initiating event, —Attempt or Action, —Consequences), minimally interpret/predict events during story telling, use some pronouns along with references to the characters names as well as discuss the character’s facial expressions, body postures & feelings (utilize early perspective taking) (Hedberg & Westby, 1993 ). By the time the child reaches 7 years of age, I expect him/her to be able to tell a story utilizing 5+ story grammar elements along with a clear ending, which indicates a resolution of the story’s problem, have a well developed plot, characters and a clear sequence of events, as well as keep consistent perspective which focuses around an incident in a story (Hedberg & Westby, 1993 ).

Therefore as children retell their stories based on the book I am keeping an eye on the following elements (as relevant to the child’s age of course):

  • Is the child’s story order adequate or all jumbled up?
  • Is the child using relevant story details or providing the bare minimum before turning the page?
  • How’s the child’s grammar? Are there errors, telegraphic speech or overuse of run-on sentences?
  • Is the child using any temporal (first, then, after that) and cohesive markers (and, so, but, etc)?
  • Is the child’s vocabulary adequate of immature for his/her age?
  • Is there an excessive number of word-retrieval difficulties which interfere with story telling and subsequently its comprehension?
  • Is the child’s story coherent and cohesive?
  • Is the child utilizing any perspective taking vocabulary and inferring the characters, feeling, ideas, beliefs, and thoughts?

Yes all of the above can be gleaned from a one wordless picture book!

If my assessment reveals that the child’s ability to engage in story telling is impaired for his/her age and I initiate treatment and still continue to use WLPBs in therapy.  Depending on the child’s deficits I focus on remediating  either elements of macrostructure (use-story organization and cohesion), microstructure (content + form including grammar syntax and vocabulary) or both.

Here are a few examples of story prompts I use in treatment with WLBPs:

  • —What is happening in this picture?
  • —Why do you think?
  • —What are the characters doing?
  • — Who /what else do you see?
  • —Does it look like anything is missing from this picture?
  • —Let’s make up a sentence with __________ (this word)
  • —Let’s tell the story. You start:
  • —Once upon a time
  • — You can say ____ or you can say ______ (teaching synonyms)
  • —What would be the opposite of _______? (teaching antonyms)
  • — Do you know that _____(this word) has 2 meanings
    • —1st meaning
    • —2nd meaning
Below are the questions I ask that focus on Story Characters and Setting —
  • Who is in this story?
  • —What do they do?
  • —How do they go together?
  • —How do you think s/he feels?
    • —Why?
    • —How do you know?
  • —What do you think s/he thinking?
    • — Why?
  • —What do you think s/he saying?
  • — Where is the story happening?
    • —Is this inside or outside?
      • —How do you know?
  • — Did the characters visit different places in the story?
    • —Which ones?
    • How many?

Here are the questions related to Story Sequencing

  • —What happens at the beginning of the story?
  • —How do we start a story?
  • — What happened second?
  • —What happened next?
  • —What happened after that?
  • —What happened last?
  • —What do we say at the end of a story?
  • —Was there trouble/problem in the story?
    • —What happened?
    • —Who fixed it?
    • —How did s/he fix it?
  • —Was there adventure in the story?
    • If yes how did it start and end?

As the child advances his/her skills I attempt to engage them in more complex book interactions—

  • —Compare and contrast story characters/items
  • —(e.g. objects/people/animals)
  • —Make predictions and inferences about what going to happen in the story
  • —Ask the child to problem solve the situation for the character
    • —What do you think he must do to…?
  • —Ask the child to state his/her likes and dislikes about the story or its characters
  • —Ask the child to tell the story back
    • —Based on Pictures
    • —Without Pictures

Wordless picture books are also terrific for teaching vocabulary of feelings and emotions

  • —Words related to thinking
    • —Know, think, remember, guess
  • —Words related to senses
    • —See, Hear, Watch, Feel
  • —Words related to personal wants
    • — Want, Need, Wish
  • —Words related to emotions and feelings
    • — Happy, Mad, Sad
  • —Words related to emotional behaviors
    • — Crying, Laughing, Frowning

So this is how I use wordless picture books for the purposes of assessment and therapy.  I’d love to know how you use them?

Before I sign off here are a few WDPBs links for you, hope you like them!

 Start having fun with your wordless picture books today!

Helpful Smart Speech Therapy Resources: 

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Speech, Language, and Literacy Fun with Helen Lester’s Picture Books

Picture books are absolutely wonderful for both assessment and treatment purposes! They are terrific as narrative elicitation aids for children of various ages, ranging from pre-K through fourth grade.  They are amazing treatment aids for addressing a variety of speech, language, and literacy goals that extend far beyond narrative production. Continue reading Speech, Language, and Literacy Fun with Helen Lester’s Picture Books

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Using Picture Books to Teach Children That It’s OK to Make Mistakes and Take Risks

Why Making Mistakes is Part of Getting Ready for Kindergarten (or ...Those of you who follow my blog know that in my primary job as an SLP working for a psychiatric hospital, I assess and treat language and literacy impaired students with significant emotional and behavioral disturbances. I often do so via the aid of picture books (click HERE for my previous posts on this topic) dealing with a variety of social communication topics. Continue reading Using Picture Books to Teach Children That It’s OK to Make Mistakes and Take Risks

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Addressing Critical Thinking Skills via Picture Books in Therapy

Critical thinking are a set of skills children need to make good independent decisions.  Critical thinking abilities involve children analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating information in order to recognize patterns, distinguish right from wrong, offer opinions, anticipate reactions to their actions, compare scenarios to choose favorable outcomes, as well as consider a variety of solutions to the same problem.

Even for typically developing children critical thinking can at times be a bit of a challenge and needs to be nurtured and encouraged through a variety of ways. However, for language impaired children, critical thinking skills hierarchy needs to be explicitly addressed in therapy sessions in order to improve these children’s independent decision-making abilities.

Teaching critical thinking skills to language impaired students is no easy feat especially considering the “seriousness” of the subject matter.  One fun way I like to address critical thinking skills is through picture books utilizing the framework outlined in Bloom’s Taxonomy: Cognitive  Domain which encompasses the following categories: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Prior to story reading ask the children to flip through the pictures and ask them questions regarding what the story might be about and what could be some potential story problems based on provided pictures.

During story reading actively question the child to ensure that they are not just passive story listeners (e.g., “Why do you think…?). Begin with basic story recall of characters, events, and outcomes (knowledge). Here asking simple -wh- questions will do the trick. Then move on to checking on what the child has done with the knowledge by asking him/her to identify main ideas of the stories as well as associate, compare, contrast and classify information (comprehension).

As you are reading the story as students to compare and contrast different characters as well as different story situations.  Children can also critically compare different (satirical) story versions of popular tales like Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, etc.

Involve children in active story discussion and analysis by asking questions the answers to which are not directly found in the story (e.g., Who else do you know who also…?; Why do you think the ___did that?) Ask the student to identify each characters motives.  When looking at a particular problem in the story ask the student how they would solve a similar real-life problem (application).

Have them weigh in pros and cons of the characters choices. Make a ridiculous statement about a story or character and have the students argue with you and explain constructively why they disagree with it. It will teach them how to find weaknesses in someone else’s reasoning. Ask the children to synthesize the presented story by generalizing it to relate to another story or an episode from their daily life.

Consider covering up story ending to have the students create their own creative alternate story conclusions. Do a shared story reading in group therapy sessions and then have a debate (e.g, Who is your favorite character and why?) in which each child has to provide appropriate rationale in order to successfully defend their point of view.

Teaching children critical thinking skills is an integral part of therapy since children need to use their language skills effectively in order to make informed decisions and function appropriately in social and academic settings.

Looking for suggestions on the hierarchy of addressing analogical problem skills then grab this one page FREEBIE I created entitled “Teaching Hierarchy of Problem Solving Skills to Children with Learning Disabilities” from my online store HERE.

So how are you teaching critical thinking skills in therapy?

Helpful Resources:

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Thematic Language Intervention with Language Impaired Children Using Nonfiction Texts

FullSizeRender (3)In the past a number of my SLP colleague bloggers (Communication Station, Twin Sisters SLPs, Practical AAC, etc.) wrote posts regarding the use of thematic texts for language intervention purposes. They discussed implementation of fictional texts such as the use of children’s books and fairy tales to target linguistic goals such as vocabulary knowledge in use, sentence formulation, answering WH questions, as well as story recall and production.

Today I would like to supplement those posts with information regarding the implementation of intervention based on thematic nonfiction texts to further improve language abilities of children with language difficulties.

First, here’s why the use of nonfiction texts in language intervention is important. While narrative texts have high familiarity for children due to preexisting, background knowledge, familiar vocabulary, repetitive themes, etc. nonfiction texts are far more difficult to comprehend. It typically contains unknown concepts and vocabulary, which is then used in the text multiple times. Therefore lack of knowledge of these concepts and related vocabulary will result in lack of text comprehension. According to Duke (2013) half of all the primary read-alouds should be informational text. It will allow students to build up knowledge and the necessary academic vocabulary to effectively participate and partake from the curriculum.

So what type of nonfiction materials can be used for language intervention purposes. While there is a rich variety of sources available, I have had great success using Let’s Read and Find Out Stage 1 and 2 Science Series with clients with varying degrees of language impairment.

Here’s are just a few reasons why I like to use this series.

  • They can be implemented by parents and professionals alike for different purposes with equal effectiveness.
  • They can be implemented with children fairly early beginning with preschool on-wards 
  • The can be used with the following pediatric populations:
    • Language Disordered Children
    • Children with learning disabilities and low IQ
    • Children with developmental disorders and genetic syndromes (Fragile X, Down Syndrome, Autism, etc.)
    • Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
    • Internationally adopted children with language impairment
    • Bilingual children with language impairment
    • Children with dyslexia and reading disabilities
    • Children with psychiatric Impairments
  • The books are readily available online (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc.) and in stores.
  • They are relatively inexpensive (individual books cost about $5-6).
  • Parents or professionals who want to continuously use them seasonally can purchase them in bulk at a significantly cheaper price from select distributors (Source: rainbowresource.com)
  • They are highly thematic, contain terrific visual support, and are surprisingly versatile, with information on topics ranging from animal habitats and life cycles to natural disasters and space.
  • They contain subject-relevant vocabulary words that the students are likely to use in the future over and over again (Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986).
  • The words are already pre-grouped in semantic clusters which create schemes (mental representations) for the students (Marzano & Marzano, 1988).

For example, the above books on weather and seasons contain information  on:

1. Front Formations
2. Water Cycle
3. High & Low Pressure Systems

Let’s look at the vocabulary words from Flash, Crash, Rumble, and Roll  (see detailed lesson plan HERE). (Source: ReadWorks):

Word: water vapor
Context: Steam from a hot soup is water vapor.

Word: expands
Context: The hot air expands and pops the balloon.

Word: atmosphere
Context:  The atmosphere is the air that covers the Earth.

Word: forecast
Context: The forecast had a lot to tell us about the storm.

Word: condense
Context: steam in the air condenses to form water drops.

These books are not just great for increasing academic vocabulary knowledge and use. They are great for teaching sequencing skills (e.g., life cycles), critical thinking skills (e.g., What do animals need to do in the winter to survive?), compare and contrast skills (e.g., what is the difference between hatching and molting?) and much, much, more!

So why is use of nonfiction texts important for strengthening vocabulary knowledge and words in language impaired children?

As I noted in my previous post on effective vocabulary instruction (HERE): “teachers with many struggling children often significantly reduce the quality of their own vocabulary unconsciously to ensure understanding” (Excerpts from Anita Archer’s Interview with Advance for SLPs).  

The same goes for SLPs and parents. Many of them are under misperception that if they teach complex subject-related words like “metamorphosis” or “vaporization” to children with significant language impairments or developmental disabilities that these students will not understand them and will not benefit from learning them.

However, that is not the case! These students will still significantly benefit from learning these words, it will simply take them longer periods of practice to retain them!

By simplifying our explanations, minimizing verbiage and emphasizing the visuals, the books can be successfully adapted for use with children with severe language impairments.  I have had parents observe my intervention sessions using these books and then successfully use them in the home with their children by reviewing the information and reinforcing newly learned vocabulary knowledge.

Here are just a few examples of prompts I use in treatment with more severely affected language-impaired children:

  • —What do you see in this picture?
  • —This is a _____ Can you say _____
  • What do you know about _____?
  • —What do you think is happening? Why?
  • What do you think they are doing? Why?
  • —Let’s make up a sentence with __________ (this word)
  • —You can say ____ or you can say ______ (teaching synonyms)
  • —What would be the opposite of _______? (teaching antonyms)
  • — Do you know that _____(this word) has 2 meanings
    • —1st meaning
    • —2nd meaning
  • How do ____ and _____ go together?

Here are the questions related to Sequencing of Processes (Life Cycle, Water Cycle, etc.)

  • —What happened first?
  • —What happened second?
  • —What happened next?
  • —What happened after that?
  • —What happened last?

As the child advances his/her skills I attempt to engage them in more complex book interactions—

  • —Compare and contrast items
  • — (e.g. objects/people/animals)
  • —Make predictions and inferences about will happen next?
  • Why is this book important?

“Picture walks” (flipping through the pages) of these books are also surprisingly effective for activation of the student’s background knowledge (what a student already knows about a subject). This is an important prerequisite skill needed for continued acquisition of new knowledge. It is important because  “students who lack sufficient background knowledge or are unable to activate it may struggle to access, participate, and progress through the general curriculum” (Stangman, Hall & Meyer, 2004).

These book allow for :

1.Learning vocabulary words in context embedded texts with high interest visuals

2.Teaching specific content related vocabulary words directly to comprehend classroom-specific work

3.Providing multiple and repetitive exposures of vocabulary words in texts

4. Maximizing multisensory intervention when learning vocabulary to maximize gains (visual, auditory, tactile via related projects, etc.)

To summarize, children with significant language impairment often suffer from the Matthew Effect (—“rich get richer, poor get poorer”), or interactions with the environment exaggerate individual differences over time

Children with good vocabulary knowledge learn more words and gain further knowledge by building of these words

Children with poor vocabulary knowledge learn less words and widen the gap between self and peers over time due to their inability to effectively meet the ever increasing academic effects of the classroom. The vocabulary problems of students who enter school with poorer limited vocabularies only worsen over time (White, Graves & Slater, 1990). We need to provide these children with all the feasible opportunities to narrow this gap and partake from the curriculum in a more similar fashion as typically developing peers. 

Helpful Smart Speech Therapy Resources:

References:

Duke, N. K. (2013). Starting out: Practices to Use in K-3. Educational Leadership, 71, 40-44.

Marzano, R. J., & Marzano, J. (1988). Toward a cognitive theory of commitment and its implications for therapy. Psychotherapy in Private Practice 6(4), 69–81.

Stahl, S. A. & Fairbanks, M. M. “The Effects of Vocabulary Instruction: A Model-based Metaanalysis.” Review of Educational Research 56 (1986): 72-110.

Strangman, N., Hall, T., & Meyer, A. (2004). Background knowledge with UDL. Wakefield, MA: National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum.

White, T. G., Graves, M. F., & Slater W. H. (1990). Growth of reading vocabulary in diverse elementary schools: Decoding and word meaning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 281–290.

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Speech, Language, and Literacy Fun with Karma Wilson’s “Bear” Books

In my previous posts, I’ve shared my thoughts about picture books being an excellent source of materials for assessment and treatment purposes. They can serve as narrative elicitation aids for children of various ages and intellectual abilities, ranging from pre-K through fourth grade.  They are also incredibly effective treatment aids for addressing a variety of speech, language, and literacy goals that extend far beyond narrative production. Continue reading Speech, Language, and Literacy Fun with Karma Wilson’s “Bear” Books