Today, on the Real Talk SLP podcast, we will discuss tips for picking speech and language therapy books for your caseload. Most school-based SLPs have larger caseloads, so finding a speech therapy book to cover every age and goal is tricky. I am going to help you narrow down the book selections so that every month, you can use 2-4 books to cover the majority of your speech therapy caseload.

In episode 114, we talked about what to do before you start reading books in literacy-based speech therapy. This helps students with comprehension, increases engagement with new vocabulary, and extends the life of a book in your sessions. In episode 115, I share lots of ways to increase engagement in your sessions when reading books. 

If you work in the school setting as an SLP, you need professional development training that will help you serve your students well. We want to help support you with building your clinical skills! Get those PD hours done with practical strategies you can implement with your caseload tomorrow. Sign up today! For the month of May, here is our line-up of speakers on Instagram. 

Before you select a speech and language therapy book, consider what goals you are targeting with your students.

Here are the list of questions I ask myself when determining what literacy-based speech therapy book I am going to choose:

• What are the goals you are trying to cover?

• How many goals can I address with this book?

• Would this book fit my student’s language levels and attention span?

• Does this book have a lot of words with my student’s speech sound?

• What does this book provide for supporting skills in the classroom environment?

• Does this book provide a new perspective or glimpse into another culture?

So if you love using a theme-based approach and need support with picking books, we provide book cheat sheets and book companions in the Themed Therapy SLP membership. We also provide Google Slides with links to songs, videos, and digital activities as well as speech homework, newsletters, task cards, non-fiction reading passages, themed flashcards and more! Here is a list of the books we provide activities for in the membership to give you idea of the themes and books. 

To find books by themes, speech sounds, or types of language areas, here are the two resources I mentioned for finding books:

• Book Share Time
• Sweet Southern Speech 

If you are on a budget, try to find books at your school or local library. Check to see if your school will give you a free GetEpic account or check out half priced books.

In this Real Talk SLP podcast episode, we discuss picking speech therapy books by target area or age. If using themes, pick your theme, then pick your books.

Here are the books I mentioned in the podcast episode:

Amazon affiliate links are provided for your convenience. I receive a small commission when you use my links.

• Beach Day by Karen Roosa – great for wh-questions, describing goals, syntax and morphology goals, building background knowledge
• Let It Shine by Maryann Cocca-Leffler – great for wh-questions, describing goals, syntax and morphology goals, building background knowledge
• When a Dragon Moves In by Jodi Moore – great for figurative language, perspective taking, inferencing, story elements, cause and effect
• A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen – great for wh-questions, building background knowledge, story retell, making predictions, thought bubble
• Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall – great for students to make personal connections with going swimming, story retell, comprehension, grammar, sound-loaded for speech sounds
• There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Shell! By Lucinda Collandro – great for sequencing, AAC CORE words, sound-loaded for s-blends, SH, and L, answering “what” questions

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