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.
In the past, I’ve shared several posts regarding how to incorporate both fiction and nonfiction picture books into contextual language intervention sessions, with the most recent posts describing how I incorporate Helen Lester‘s as well as Julia Cook‘s picture books into therapy sessions.
Today I wanted to share how I implement books by Karma Wilson into my treatment sessions with preschool, kindergarten aged, as well as early elementary aged children.
Though these books are intended for younger children (3-8 years; pre-K-3rd grade), older children (~10 years of age) with significant language and learning difficulties and/or intellectual disabilities can significantly benefit from reading/listening to them and enjoy working with them as well.
Much like Helen Lester’s books, Karma Wilson’s books possess tremendous versatility with respect to what goals can be targeted via their use.
Themes:
- Ms. Wilson’s books are terrific for discussing a variety of seasonal events and happenings.
- ‘Bear Feels Sick’, ‘Bear Feels Scared’ and ‘Bear Says Thanks‘ take place in the fall.
- ‘Bear Can’t Sleep’, ‘Bear Stays Up’, and ‘Bear Snores On‘ take place in the winter.
- ‘Bear’s New Friend’ and Bear’s Loose Tooth‘ take place in the Spring and Summer.
- They are great for discussing illness and visits to the dentist (‘Bear Feels Sick’ and Bear’s Loose Tooth’), hibernation ( ‘Bear Snores On‘), holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas (‘Bear Says Thanks‘ and ‘Bear Stays Up‘).
- They are also great for select social themes such as feeling frightened and making new friends (‘Bear Feels Scared’ and ‘Bear’s New Friend’).
- Finally, ‘Bear Wants More‘ is great for working on nutrition as well as on making healthy food choices, in addition to reviewing a variety of food groups as well as food categories.
Speech Production: Bear books are terrific for the production of a variety of sounds in words in sentences including /r/ in all books, /s/ (‘Bear Feels Sick’, ‘Bear Feels Scared’), /th/ (‘Bear Says Thanks‘ ), etc.
Language: There are numerous language goals that could be formulated based on Karma Wilson’s books including answering concrete and abstract listening comprehension questions, defining story-embedded vocabulary words, producing word associations, synonyms, antonyms, and multiple-meaning words (semantic awareness), formulating compound and complex sentences (syntax), answering predicting and inferencing questions (critical thinking), gauging moods and identifying emotional reactions of characters (social communication), assuming characters’ perspectives and frame of reference (social cognition, theory of mind, etc.), identifying main ideas in text (Gestalt processing) and much, much more.
- Select Highlights:Vocabulary: For the ages/grades that there’ve written for (3-8 years; pre-K-3rd grade), Ms. Wilson’s books are laden with a wealth of sophisticated vocabulary words such as vale, crooked, trail, lumbers, prowl, howl, spooks, wails, dimmer, squeaks, lair, roam, perch, prepare, trembles, longs, flounce, squawk, cluster, etc. (From the ‘Bear Feels Scared’ book)
- Social Communication: ‘Bear’s New Friend’, ‘Bear’s Loose Tooth’, and ‘Bear Says Thanks’ are especially terrific for addressing a variety of social themes such as rules of politeness, making new friends (and accepting them for who they are), as well as helping out friends in difficult circumstances.
Literacy: Similar to the above, numerous literacy goals can be formulated based on these books. These include but are not limited to, goals targeting phonological (e.g., rhyming words, counting syllables in words, etc.) and phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency and comprehension, spelling, as well as the composition of written responses to story questions.
- Select Highlights:
- Phonics: Students can practice reading words containing a variety of syllable shapes as well as decode low-frequency words containing a variety of consonantal clusters (From the ‘Bear Feels Sick’ book: achy, autumn, stuffed, sneezes, heap, wheezes, whiffs, mutters, mumbles, moans, broth, squeezes, whispers, cloth, gopher, coax, herbs, smidgen, fuss, fret, etc.
- Morphology: There’s a terrific opportunity to introduce a discussion on simple affixes when using Ms. Wilson’s books to discuss how for example, select suffixes (e.g., –s, -ly, ‘ed, , etc.) can change root words. (From the ‘Bear Stays Up’ book: soundly, stays, gathered, etc.)
- Spelling: There is a terrific opportunity for children to practice spelling numerous spelling patterns to solidify their spelling abilities. From the ‘Bear’s New Friend’ book: -00-, -ee-, -ea-,-oo-, -oe-, -ou-, -le, -ff-, -mm-, -tt-, etc.
As mentioned in previous posts, when working with picture books, I typically spend numerous sessions working with the same book. That is because research indicates that language disordered children require 36 exposures (as compared with 12 exposures for typically developing children) to learn new words via interactive book reading (Storkel et al, 2016). As such, I discuss vocabulary words before, during, and after the book reading, by asking the children to both repeatedly define and then use selected words in sentences so the students can solidify their knowledge of these words.
I also spent quite a bit of time on macrostructure, particularly on the identification and definitions of story grammar elements as well as having the student match the story grammar picture cards to various portions of the book.
When working with picture books, here are some verbal prompts that I provide to the students with a focus on story Characters and
Setting
- Who are the characters in this story?
- Where is the setting in this story?
- Are there multiple settings in this story?
- What are some emotions the characters experience throughout this story?
- When did they experience these emotions in the story?
- How do you think this character is feeling when ____?
- Why?
- How do you know?
- What do you think this character is thinking?
- Why?
- How do you know?
- What are some actions the characters performed throughout the story?
- What were the results of some of those actions?
Here is a sampling of verbal prompts I provide to the students with a focus on story Sequencing
- What happened at the beginning of the story?
- What words can we use to start a story?
- What happened next?
- What happened after that?
- What happened last?
- How do we end a story?
- What was the problem in the story?
- Was there more than one problem?
- What happened?
- Who solved it?
- How did s/he solve it?
- Was there adventure in the story?
- If yes, how did it start and end?
Here is a sampling of verbal prompts I provide to the students with a focus on Critical Thinking
- How are these two characters alike/different? (compare/contrast)
- What do you think will happen next? (predicting)
- Why/How do you think ___ happened (inferencing)
- Why shouldn’t you, couldn’t s/he ____ ? (answering negative questions)
- What do you thing s/he must do to ______? (problem-solving)
- How would you solve his problem? (determining solutions)
- Why is your solution ______ a good solution? (providing justifications)
Here is a small sampling of verbal prompts I provide to the students with a focus on Social Communication and Social Cognition
- How would you feel if ____?
- What is his/her mood at ____ point in the story?
- How do you know?
- What is his/her reaction to the ____?
- How do you know?
- How does it make you feel that s/he are _____?
- Can you tell me two completely different results of this character’s actions?
- What could you say to this character to make him/her feel better?
- Why?
- What would you think if?
At times, I also use select Free TPT resources to supplement my sessions with book-related visuals as related materials.
There you have it! Just a few of the reasons why I really like using Karma Wilson’s books for language and literacy treatment purposes with younger children. How about you? Do you use any of her books for treatment purposes? If yes, comment below which ones you use and why do you use them?
References:
- Gillam, S. L., Gillam, R. B., & Reece, K. (2012). Language outcomes of contextualized and decontextualized language intervention: Results of an early efficacy study. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 43, 276–291.
- Gillam, S. L., Olszewski, A., Fargo, J., & Gillam, R. B. (2014). Classroom-based narrative and vocabulary instruction: Results of an early-stage, nonrandomized comparison study. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 45, 204–219.
- Storkel, H, et. al (2016) Interactive Book Reading to Accelerate Word Learning by Kindergarten Children With Specific Language Impairment: Identifying an Adequate Intensity and Variation in Treatment Response Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools 48(1):1, pp. 16-30.
Helpful Related Smart Speech Therapy Resources:
- Narrative Assessments of Preschool and School Aged Children
- Vocabulary Development: Working With Disadvantaged Populations
- Understanding Complex Sentences
- Improving Critical Thinking Skills via Picture Books in Children with Language Disorders
- From Wordless Picture Books to Reading Instruction: Effective Strategies for SLPs Working with Intellectually Impaired Students
- Treatment of Literacy Disorders in Speech-Language Pathology
- Effective Reading Instruction Strategies for Intellectually Impaired Students
Thanks! I have all of these books and will be incorporating them more with some of your suggestions!
I cannot wait to order these books and use them in therapy!