Christmas books for speech therapy to make planning so much easier! It’s the most, wonderful time, of the year! Okay, while it might be the most wonderful, it can also be the most stressful… so let me help ease your mind and take some stress off your plate with these simple, no-prep speech therapy winter activities for all your kiddos! I use all of these ideas in my own speech room every year. To learn more about me and my journey as a school SLP click here.
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Best Children’s Books for Speech Therapy
Picture this: it’s the Monday after Thanksgiving break, and you’re still in a daze from all your turkey, crazy shopping hours, getting all the decorations up, etc., etc., etc. Wow, the holidays are exhausting! And you realize you haven’t thought a bit about your therapy plans. What in the world are you going to do to fill the time these next 3 weeks AND keep your crazy, excited kiddos engaged!? No worries! I got you covered. These are some of my favorite Christmas books to use in therapy. And most with very little planning needed!
Why Use Books in Therapy?
Books are such an easy, fairly inexpensive, and very efficient way to teach so many language skills in a single session. Children naturally get access to tons of new vocabulary from listening to a single book.
“A favorite research tidbit from a 1988 study by Donald Haynes and Margaret Ahrens concluded that children’s books contain approximately twice as many infrequently used or rare words than even conversations among college graduates.” (Robertson, 2017).
Books are so convenient too! In the schools, we all have access to a library right there, teacher friends with huge classroom libraries, and thanks to Amazon, we can have them right on our doorstep in just a couple of days for our own growing libraries!
Books to Help with Speech Therapy Planning
Some of my favorite books to use in therapy are ones with:
- Repetitive phrases (for early language learners and sound production
- Picture books without words (for story retell/story narrative goals)
- Books that rhyme (for phonemic awareness)
- Books with predictive elements (for expressive language and grammar)
- Books with figurative language and complex sentence structure (for older students and those working on higher language skills)
Book Share Time is a great site to use if you are looking for more books to add to your speech library or to help with your speech planning. You can search on their site for books by speech sound, age, theme, or a variety of language skills such as vocabulary, story structure, rhyming, and social-emotional. It is such a great resource!
Christmas Books for Speech Therapy
Books give you so much bang for your buck when it comes to speech and language goals and there are so many good Christmas/holiday options.
Santa Calls by William Joyce
This is book is not as well known as some others, and I’ll admit, I had never heard of it until my SLP friend and mentor shared it with me. She said it was one of her all-time favorites with her own children and would read it to our students every year. We spent weeks on this book and did a whole unit on it because it is so language-rich. (It is also quite lengthy, so hard to fit it all into one session). There are tons of good vocabulary terms in this book and the kids literally hang onto every word. They could not wait to get to the next section of the book each session. We found that it was most appropriate for our 4th and 5th graders, I think it would work with middle schoolers as well.
It’s about a little boy who lost his parents, his sister, and his friend. It takes place in Texas and goes through their adventures to the North Pole. The ending of the story is absolutely beautiful, so I won’t ruin it for you, but I will tell you I cry every single time. The last year my friend read this with our kids (before she moved on to a different position) I was 9 months pregnant, and I can assure you there were ugly tears!
Best Christmas Books for Speech Therapy
Below are some more of my favorite Christmas books and some notes on how I use them:
- Polar Express – vocabulary, story retell, answering questions
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas – story retell, sequencing, character description
- Bear Stays Up for Christmas – sequencing, simple questions, verbs, basic concepts
- Mooseltoe – character description, story retell
- Never Let a Unicorn Meet a Reindeer! – compare/contrast, story retell
For a fun Christmas craft to use with any of the above books, check out this Christmas tree craft in my freebie library!
Good Books for Speech Therapy – Winter
If you don’t use Christmas themes in your room, or if you like to add in seasonal themes as well, I have more ideas for you! I like to do a Winter theme in January after Christmas break.
Some of My Favorite Winter-Themed Books for Therapy
Below are some more of my favorite Winter-themed books and some notes on how I use them:
- Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you Hear? – /r/ sound, predicting, animal sounds, categories
- Over and Under in the Snow – prepositions, vocabulary, descriptive language
- The Gruffalo’s Child – story retell, descriptive language
- Sneezy the Snowman – rhyming, problem/solution, story retell
The Best Book for Speech Therapy – Winter Themes
The Mitten is probably my absolute favorite Winter read with my little ones. I love to use it for sequencing and let my students act out each of the animal parts as they climb in the mitten. It also pairs perfectly if you are targeting core vocabulary, to work on “in” that week. In addition to core vocabulary, there is also a lot of robust vocabulary in this book, especially the action words. You can spend a lot of time talking about these verbs and even practice taking turns, and acting them out.
More Tips for Use:
There is also great descriptive language in this book. For your students who are a little older, you could pair this book with some graphic organizers and word banks to work on describing (oral or written) using the descriptions of the animals. Then take it a step further and compare and contrast the animals. The possibilities are endless with this book!
More Winter Therapy Ideas – Winter Articulation Printables
Who doesn’t love a quick, easy printable when you’re in a pinch (especially this time of year)! I have these winter speech therapy activities for a variety of articulation sounds and phonological patterns in my tpt store. These speech therapy winter activities are perfect for getting in multiple drills in the therapy room and to send home winter themes speech therapy ideas for homework practice with caregivers. Winter and Christmas speech therapy activities are so fun and motivating for our students. The following sounds are included: CV & VC words, CVC words, multisyllabic words, /k, g/, /t, d/, /s, z/ /s/ blends, /l, r/, /l/ blends, /r/ blends, & /sh, ch, dg/ with the following sounds for each:
- Roll & Color pages for all sounds + 1 blank
- Stamp and Say Pages (3 styles) for all sounds + 3 blank
- Cut & Paste picture scenes (3 styles) for all sounds
Long Graphic – artic worksheets
These worksheets can be used in isolation to target students’ articulation goals or they are also perfect to use within the cycles approach.
- Pair a dice with the Roll & Color pages for a simple game in group therapy (each student can have a page with their individual sounds)
- Use the Stamp and Say pages with crayons, markers, stamps, etc. for a quick, simple way to get 50+ trials
- Use the Cut & Paste pages for a simple, no-prep craft that students can take home for extra practice
For more Christmas Books for Speech Therapy Ideas:
The Best Christmas Books for Speech Therapy from Speech Room News
The Very Best Christmas Books for Speech Therapy from Whitney SLP
Favorite Holiday books for Speech Therapy from SLP Mommy of Apraxia
Sources:
Shari Robertson, PhD, CCC-SLP
https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.SCM.22122017.34
https://booksharetime.com/books#
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I hope you found some of these ideas helpful and can use one or more in your therapy room this season. Please leave a comment or shoot me an email if you want to share some of your favorite Christmas books for speech therapy.
