Page 192 - Literacy Based Speech Language Therapy Activities Digital Version

Literacy-Based Speech Language Therapy Activities

Rhyme Stories

Using a story that rhymes is like driving your car on cruise
control. The rhyme takes over the cadence, intonation,

and length so we can focus on the content.
Communication requires expectation. Someone says
something, and we respond. Someone asks a question

that we then answer. The rhyme naturally delivers this
expectation through the rhymed syllable sound or word.

Rhyme stories can be as short and simple as Humpty

Dumpty or as advanced as a full storybook poem like
Room on a Broom.

Rhyme Stories are great for therapy because:

 You can find simple to complex rhymes to easily match even the most profound
communication deficits.
 Many students have familiarity with rhymes.
 Rhymes are present in all cultures.
 Rhymes easily enable the production of longer utterances by employing meter and relying on
repetitious phrasing.
 There are many opportunities to use past, present, future, and even conditional tense.
 Rhythms present in the rhymes create natural opportunities for whole body and kinesthetic
movements.
 Phonological syllable-building is aided by clapping or tapping the beat.
 Many rhymes have moral or ethical themes embedded in their message.

How to use Rhyme Stories in Speech Therapy

The Gruffalo is a great example of the power of rhyme. It is a
full text story including location, characters, problems, and
solutions. A mouse invents a monster to scare off other animals

who want to eat him but winds up meeting an actual Gruffalo in
the end. Let’s use it as an example for what we can accomplish in
speech therapy.

The Gruffalo / El Gruffalo

by Julia Donaldson

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