Looking for a fun and effective way to build language skills in your students? A circular story might be just what you need. These cleverly structured tales loop back to where they started, making them memorable, engaging, and perfect for developing storytelling, sequencing, and prediction skills in speech therapy and the classroom.

In this post, we’ll break down what a circular story is, why it works so well for language development, and how to use it in your sessions. You’ll also find circular stories examples you can start using right away, plus tips for creating your own with students. Whether you’re working on retelling, vocabulary, or comprehension, circular stories are a simple tool with big impact.

Circular Story Definition

 A circular story is a narrative that ends where it began, creating a full circle in the plot. The characters or setting may return to their original state, highlighting a theme, lesson, or transformation along the way.

Chain or circular stories are great for therapy because:

• Many have a great macrostructure of beginning, middle, and end, which helps us teach sequencing.
• They contain the “typical” macrostructure elements such as characters, setting [time and place], problem, solution, initiating event, character intentions and desires, and moral.
• The end of the story comes around full circle, which gives a great opportunity to work on story organization/structure, and making predictions on how a story may end.
• Many have some sort of cause and effect or problem and solution that can be discussed.
• They can be adapted across age/grade levels to work at the cognitive level of the student(s).

How to use a Circular Story in Speech Therapy

Here is one of our favorite Circular or Chain stories and examples of how we use it in therapy to target a variety of goals:

Where the Wild Things Are/Donde Viven Los Monstruos

by Maurice Sendak.

Another way we can work on the story structure is by creating a story map that is a visual of the events in the story.  The first event occurs, and the map is circular (instead of linear), with the last event of the story coming back to the first.  Take a look at these examples and you can try creating a circular story map yourself in therapy!  It can be low tech or high tech–examples of both are shown here:

“Low-tech”

Have the SLP or student draw a circle on a piece of paper and write/draw events from the story. Use arrows to show the order/flow of the story and use those arrows as “reminders” to include sequencing and cohesion words, like “then,” “next,” “so,” etc.

“High-tech”

This is a really easy-to-use website that allows the SLP or students to type in their own information based on the story events, in whatever language, and can be printed and sent to parents and teachers.  www.readwritethink.org   Here is an example of what we created:

1. Max sent to his room:  Max creates mischief and yells at his mother, so he is sent to his room without supper.
2. Max’s room changes:  Max’s room changes into a forest and he gets on a boat and crosses the ocean for almost a year.
3. Max becomes king:  Max gets to where the Wild Things live. They try to scare him, but he is brave. He becomes king of the Wild Things. They have a wild rumpus.
4. Max gets lonely:  After the rumpus, Max sends the Wild Things to bed without dinner.  He starts to feel lonely and wants to go back home.
5. Max leaves :  The Wild Things do not want Max to leave, so he travels back home.
6. Max arrives back at his bedroom:  He finds his supper waiting for him. It is still hot.

Getting the best BANG for your BOOK:

What are the best parts of using Circular/Chain stories in therapy?  By working on these macrostructure and story elements, we are automatically aligning to the core curriculum.     We are also addressing multiple goals and are producing materials that can be used across several different disorder groups.  Now THAT’s an effective and efficient way to do our jobs!

Great Books for Speech Therapy that use Circular Stories

So off you go!  Below, you will also find a list of some of our other favorite Chain/Circular Stories that are written in both English and Spanish.  We hope you find this useful and would love to hear from you on how YOU use these books in therapy!

English	Spanish	Description of Story
A Chair for My Mother	Un sillon para mi mama	Plot:  A family must work together with their community to rebuild their home after a fire. Why we like it:  Plot, culture, great opportunities for visualizing and describing.
Knufflebunny	El Conejito Knuffle	Plot: On an errand to the laundromat, Trixie loses her beloved stuffed bunny and must figure out where he’s gone. Why we like it: Students identify with Trixie’s struggle to express herself.
The Snowy Day	Un dia de nieve	Plot: A little boy plays outside in the snow and then goes home to tell his mom all about it. Why we like it: Lots of opportunities for predicting, sequencing, and talking about the winter season.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie	Si le das una galletita a un ratón	Plot: When a mouse invites himself into the house and is given a cookie, a number of entertaining consequences ensue. Why we like it: It’s a good way to introduce the concept of cause and effect and can be used for sequencing and predicting.
If You Give a Moose a Muffin	Si le das un panecillo a un alce	Plot: A surprise guest invites himself in and again takes advantage of a boy’s hospitality in an entertaining way. Why we like it: Similar to it’s predecessor, it’s also great for sequencing and making predictions, working on sentence building and vocabulary.
If You Give a Pig a Pancake	Si Le Das Un Panqueque a Una Cerdita	Plot: Following the similar structure of other circular stories by this author, a pig is given a pancake leading to a chain of consequences.  Comical exploration concept, “If you give an inch, they’ll take a mile.” Why we like it: Similar to its predecessors, but with a female protagonist, it’s great for teaching cause and effect, predictions, and sequencing in a humorous light.
Why Mosquitos Buzz in People’s Ears	Porque Zumban los Mosquitos en Los Oidos	Plot: A mosquito tells a lie to an iguana and sets off a series of events. It is a ‘fable-like’ story. Why we like it: It teaches the value of telling the truth, and is great for visualizing, describing, and sequencing. It provides a context to learn about different animals, cause and effect, and has beautiful illustrations.
The Rainbow Fish	El Pez Arco Iris	Plot: A proud fish learns a lesson about valuing inner beauty and friendship. Why we like it: Lovely illustrations, fairly predictable story that is good for vocabulary building, semantic mapping, and teaching predictions and inferencing.  Great story for working on social/pragmatic skills (friendship building/initiating play).
The Mitten	El Mitón	Plot: A Ukrainian story about a boy who loses a mitten knitted by his grandmother that many animals take refuge in to get out of the cold. Why we like it: Pre-school level story that is good for teaching animals and winter vocabulary. It is great for making predictions, and it is an easy story to teach basic story retell skills.
Where the Wild Things Are	Donde viven los monstruos	Plot: A little boy imagines himself traveling to a far away place, where he makes unlikely friends and learns to appreciate what he has at home when he returns. Why we like it: Great story for inspiring children’s imaginations, wonderful book for working on consonant clusters in Spanish (/r/ clusters), vocabulary, talking about body parts, describing, and can be used with a wide range of ages.

Want to Get More Out of Your Speech Therapy? – Use Predictable Books

There are eight different types of predictable books as well as ways to use all the different types of predictable books with games. We can use these eight groups to categorize the books we read and get a better understanding of what each book has to offer.  These predictable categories also enable us to better define WHY our favorite books for speech therapy are successful, thus helping identify other book titles for future sessions.  Click on each story type to read more about each type of predictable books.

1. Justifying the Use of Speech Therapy Games with Literacy Research
2. Familiar Sequence Story: A common, recognizable theme such as the days of the week, the months, etc. Example: Today is Monday
3. Chain or Circular Story: The story’s ending leads back to the beginning. Example: Where the Wild Things Are
4. Cumulative Story: The story builds on a pattern. It starts with one person, place, thing, or event. Each time a new person, place, thing, or event is shown, all the previous ones are repeated. Example: There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
5. Question and Answer Book: A question is repeated throughout the story. Example: Brown Bear, Brown Bear
6. Repetition of Phrase Book:  A phrase or sentence is repeated. Example: Goodnight Moon
7. Rhyme Book: A rhyme, refrain, or rhythm is repeated throughout the story. Example: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
8. Song Book: Familiar songs with repeated phrases, sentences, rhymes, or refrains. Example: Five Little Monkeys
9. Pattern Story: The scenes or episodes are repeated with a variation. Example: Froggy Gets Dressed

Note that predictable themes are easier to identify with books written for younger children.  We often see more overlap of characteristics in different types of predictable books in stories written for older children, as they contain more story elements.

For loads more information about fun intervention strategies that incorporate books, be sure to check out our book, Literacy-Based Speech and Language Activities.

And if you want to earn CEUs and learn how to effectively learn how to use storybooks in intervention and make games, check out the Literacy-Based Everything Pack