My Top 5 books to support speech development in toddlers
3. Touch and Feel Books
Why speech therapists love it?
Babies, especially under one year, learn with their hands and mouths. Adding a sensory component peaks their interest! Not to mention, increase the amount of vocabulary words modeled. Ex: it’s a duck, oh he’s fluffy, I like it, the cat’s nose, it’s rough. Touch and feel books are a great way to introduce literacy under a year! Visuals are typically limited in these books and allow for you to model many animal sounds, which are the easiest for your baby to copy.
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4. Five Little Monkeys
Why speech therapists love it?
It’s no secret babies and toddlers LOVE music and often will start singing along with songs early. This is because songs are predictable, they know what’s coming next! This book merges together the world of literacy and music offering the perfect way to use pictures to support comprehension of the song and pausing during known parts to encourage responses from your child.
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Brown Bear, Brown Bear
Why speech therapists love it?
Brown Bear is an excellent book for young children. There are limited visuals on the page, it is repetitive, it carries a tune, and is perfect for using speech therapy strategies to encourage responses from your baby/toddler. Instead of reading through the book, try pausing while pointing to the picture. This encourages your toddler to react with eye contact, a sound, a gesture, or even a word. Ex: Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? I see a……..white dog looking at me! I enjoy the “slide and find” board book version, as I can add new words and give directions in between pages. Ex: knock knock, let’s open it, gotta close it, turn the page, who’s next? Plus the board book pages are more durable for younger ages.
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2. Poke-A-Dot books
Why speech therapists love it?
Poke-a-dot books provide sensory feedback for counting or labeling. It also increases the amount of time spent on the page! Often, children love to flip the pages quickly. This allows for instructions “Oh let’s get that duck!” and introduces counting skill while building patience on a single page. More importantly, it isolates the pointer finger to develop this fine motor skill. Speech therapy wise, it offers repetitive labeling of animals and can be used with the corresponding song, “Old McDonald”.
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5. Pete the Cat: I love my white shoes
Why speech therapists love it?
This is a great introduction to a story with cause and effect for your toddler. It continues to have the cadence of a “song”, but not quite at the level of “brown bear” or “five little monkeys”. Pete is wearing white shoes that turn different colors depending on what he steps in. It asks open ended questions, what happened to his shoes? It also introduces being upset because our shoes became “dirty”. This is a wonderful toddler book that goes beyond surface level naming and labeling. The only downfall is paper pages, no board book option! However, thin pages target more advanced fine motor skills rather than turning a thick cardboard page, just more fragile.
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