Repetitive stories are one of my absolute favorite speech therapy tools for preschoolers!
I have a huge collection of repetitive stories in my therapy room and I use one in almost every single therapy session. In case you are wondering what a repetitive story is, it is any book that has similar text on each page, with only a few words/lines changing on each page (Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle is one of my favourites). In my opinion, repetitive stories should be a part of every SLPs therapy toolkit!
There are so many reasons why repetitive books are a powerful therapy tool. Here are my top five reasons why you should be using repetitive stories in your therapy sessions:
VERSATILE: Repetitive stories are so versatile because they can be used to target a huge variety of goals. You can target target word shapes, phonology, articulation, receptive language, and expressive language. That’s a long of bang for your buck!
TONNES of NATURAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR PRACTICE: If you’ve been hanging out with my on the blog or over on Instagram, you know that I am OBSESSED with NATURAL therapy opportunities. Repetitive stories allow for a TONNE of trials of whatever the target is in a fun and natural way because the target appears on every page.
BUILD INDEPENDENCE IN YOUR STUDENTS: Most of the time, your student will get the hang of the book by the third or fourth page and can being ‘filling in the blank’ if you pause while reading. This offers so many wonderful opportunities for the practice of grammar markers, word shapes, speech sounds, and vocabulary words. All you have to do is pause at the ‘right’ place in the book to allow the child to practice their specific target.
DECREASE FRUSTRATION and INCREASE PARTICIPATION: A lot of our students have receptive language delays and listening to stories can be frustrating for them. Repetitive text allows them to build understanding because they are able to hear the words and sentences many, many times during the story! This increase in understanding can lead to increased participation and decreased frustration.
THEY’RE FUN: Most receptive books follow a very playful pattern and have rhyming text. This makes them enjoyable to read and fun to listen to!
REPETITIVE STORIES “AMPED” UP
I wanted to AMP up my repetitive story collection last fall, so I began creating repetitive stories that also have an interactive component (i.e. pieces for the student to complete the story). I created these stories with all of my busy preschoolers in mind! Keeping little preschool hands busy during storytime can be a huge game changer because as we know - preschool hands aren’t made to sit still!
Because each story is repetitive, your students will be able to “tell” you the story using the interactive pieces by the time you get a few pages into the story. These stories can be used for a HUGE variety of goals.
Not sure how to use them? Don’t worry! I include a ‘cheat sheet’ with each story (some of them are designed for specific targets *but can be used to target a TONNE of goals), so make sure to check out the description to find exactly what you need!).
Click to get a closer look, check out my YouTube Channel or click the following:
I wanna cookie!: Early word shapes
Little Bee! Don’t sting me!: Body Parts and Concepts
Butterfly, Butterfly! Where do you Fly?: Three syllable words
Gimme a Bone!: Bilabials
Ew! It’s Poo!: Early Word Shapes
Oh No! It’s a Boo-Boo!: Early Word words
Oh No! What happened: Wh-Questions
Sneaky Spider! I see you!: S-blends
Keep those germs outta sight: Teachings students about wearing masks
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