Page 9 - Literacy Based Speech Language Therapy Activities Digital Version

Literacy-Based Speech Language Therapy Activities

6. Creating Incredible Games that Match Story Content

Have you ever heard this?

“Speech therapists just play games.”

Rather than defend ourselves, why don’t we completely own it? In Section 6 we introduce you to a
way to classify narratives into eight categories of “Predictable Books.” This classification system is
used to describe the narrative structure of a book. By understanding the direction that a story flows,
we can create board games that rapidly boost the linguistic output of our students and clients.

As a quick example, Where the Wild Things Are is a
“Circular Story.” Max leaves his bedroom, crosses
the ocean to where the Wild Things are, sails back

across the ocean, and returns to his bedroom.
Students who built this board game told an
extremely complex and detailed story. More

importantly, they understood this type of
predictable story deeply.

Building gaming into our therapy enables something that we love to experience: Students are highly
engaged and at the same time are generating incredibly rich expressive language.

Appendices: Great Books for Literacy-Based Intervention

We have all used storybooks with children that have completely bombed. Conversely, we have all
seen children glued to stories that are bizarre at best. What is going on? We end with a list of great

books for speech and language intervention that are organized by grade and topic.

So please, step into our world. In this world, the things that the children enjoy the most are
the things that also get great results. In this world, we laugh and enjoy our jobs as much as the

children do. In this safe place, we learn the entire time we are teaching. We learn about our children,
about cultures, about foreign places, and are reminded of why we became educators in the first place.

Please join us,

Scott Prath & the Team at Bilinguistics

viii
www.bilinguistics.com