Top 5 Books for Back To School Speech Therapy Activities
This blog post is written to help school-based speech therapists plan their back-to-school speech therapy activities using the best back-to-school speech therapy books. If you are looking for back-to-school speech therapy ideas keep reading for the top 5 children’s books that will help you plan no-prep activities for your speech therapy groups to work on speech and language skills.
Back to School Speech Therapy Books
It’s back-to-school season! Can you feel the buzz in the air or is that the extra coffee we are drinking these days to get through the back-to-school must-dos for speech therapy caseload organization and speech therapy activities?
Here is a powerful back-to-school speech therapy idea that's going to make your speech therapy sessions a total blast as you build rapport with your students and establish therapy routines.
Whether you are in a new building and need to get to know you back-to-school activitiy or you are returning to your same caseload but schedules dictate a ton of mixed groups, here is a great place to start.
Picture this: break out the books! Yes, books, books, and more books.
With just a sprinkle of prep, you can turn a single story into a treasure trove of speech therapy activities. We're talking articulation, phonology, and language skills – all in one go. It's like hitting multiple targets with a single bullseye!
Here are my top 5 favorite speech therapy back-to-school books that I use at the start of every school year! These books allow you to establish speech therapy routines, get to know your students, focus on social skills and rules, build rapport, and target goal areas.
The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown
The Important Book (đź”—affiliate link) provides a great opportunity to work on higher-level language goals, specifically for describing and defining using salient features. While this book is a great resource to use all year for language processing goals, it provides a great mentor text for students to describe themselves during an All About Me Speech Therapy Activity.
If You Take a Mouse to School by Laura Numeroff
This back-to-school book is a classic! With If You Take a Mouse to School (đź”—affiliate link), you can use this book with your preschool, first and second grade students to work on if-then cause and effect skills, school-related vocabulary and it provides a great opportunity to model core words for students using AAC. This book is a great resource to practice vocabulary related to school and students love going on a scavenger hunt to find the different parts of the school and associated items.
What if Everybody Did That by Ellen Javernick
What if Everybody Did That (đź”—affiliate link), is an absolute must for setting group expectations, social-emotional learning, perspective-taking, and social skills. As you read the book, students are placed in situations that will require critical thinking for them to analyze problems and solutions.
The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt
This picture book favorite is an excellent way to introduce the concepts of Growth Mindset and Fixed Mindset in your social skills activities for kids. The Day the Crayons Quit (đź”—affiliate link), provides a wonderful way for students to work on perspective-taking and understanding growth mindset.
There Was an Old Lady Swallowed Some Books by Lucille Colandro
Who doesn’t love the There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Series? There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books (🔗affiliate link) is no exception! Both Speech Therapists and students will love working on sequencing skills and recalling details with this book. Add in the story elements to make a fun and interactive lesson for your back-to-school speech therapy activities.
