One of the best ways you can help your younger child build their speech and language skills is through repetitive line books. Repetitive line books can be used to help with literacy skills, as well as with the following speech and language skills:
- Learning sentence structure (grammar)
- Working on articulation (pronunciation) if the sound the child is working on is in the repetitive line
- Improving motor planning for children that have apraxia and/or other motor planning issues affecting their speech
- Teaching inferencing and predicting skills
- Using an Augmentative and Alternative Communication System (AAC) system: can be used with non talking systems such as Core Vocabulary Systems, single cell systems (like a Big Mac or Step by Step Sequencer), and with multiple types of robust electronic systems (including, but not limited to iPads with communication apps)
- Teaching Easy Talking (using a moderate rate of speech with natural pauses) to help improve fluency in children that stutter
Using repetitive line books with your child is easy. Here is how you can do it:
- During the first read through, you read the entire book
- During the second read through, when you get to the repetitive line, leave out the very last word in the line when you read it, pause and see if you child will say it. If they don’t, just hold your pause for a few seconds, then say it and turn the page. Try again with that word on the next occurrence until they get that last word themselves. It is OK if they do not articulate it perfectly. If your child is using an AAC system, following the pause, wait for them to find the word in their AAC system and point to it, or touch it.
- On each subsequent time you read the book, once your child has been able to communicate the last word, reduce more words you read from each phrase, moving from the end of the phrase to the beginning
For example, for the repetitive line: “No more monkeys jumping on the bed”
First Read: “No more monkeys jumping on the bed”
Second Read: “No more monkeys jumping on the ____”
Third Read: “No more monkeys jumping on ___ / ____”
Fourth Read: “No more monkeys jumping ___ / ___ / ____ “
And so on until your child is saying the whole line.
There are many wonderful repetitive line books out there. Your local librarian is a great resource to help you find them. Here are some favorites to help get you started:
5 Monkeys Jumping on a Bad: Varied Authors
Are you my Mother? By P.D. Eastman
Bear Snores On By Karma Wilson
Brown Bear, Brown Bear: What Do You See? By Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom By Bill Martin Jr.
Dear Zoo By Rod Campbell
Go Away Big Green Monster! By Ed Emberley
Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? By Nancy White Carlstrom
Jump, Frog, Jump! By Robert Kalan
Have You Seen my Cat? By Eric Carle
Is Your Mama a Llama? By Deborah Guarino
It Looked like Spilt Milk By Charles G. Shaw
One Duck Stuck By Phyllis Root
Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? By Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle
Pete the Cat: I Love my White Shoes By Eric Litwin
Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? By Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle
Sheep in a Shop By Nancy E. Shaw
Silly Sally By Audrey Wood
There was an old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (and other Old Lady Books, authors vary)
The Grouchy Ladybug By Eric Carle
The Jacket I Wear in the Snow By Shirley Neitzel
The Little Engine That Could By Watty Piper
The Napping House By Audrey Wood
The Very Busy Spider By Eric Carle
The Very Hungry Caterpillar By Eric Carle