Winter themed children's books for Speech, language & literacy development

We love to incorporate children’s books into our pediatric speech therapy sessions. Did you know that Speech Language Pathologists play a critical role in the development of emergent literacy skills for young children with communication disorders? As children begin to learn speech and language skills, they are simultaneously learning skills that are essential for the development of reading and writing.  This ‘emergent literacy’ stage of development begins at birth and continues through preschool aged years. 

Reading often with your children can help them learn essential speech, language and literacy skills such as:

·      New and seasonal vocabulary

·      New language concepts

·      Narrative and sequencing skills

·      Phonological awareness skills

·      Descriptive language skills

·      Answering Comprehension questions

·      Understanding story elements

·      Problem solving

·      Perspective Taking

·      Print awareness

·      Making predictions

Here is a list of eight winter-themed children's books that we frequently suggest to parents whose children receive our speech and language therapy services in Los Angeles. We have also included a few ways you can use these books to teach language and early literacy skills at home.  

1. Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright

This book is wonderful for targeting s-blends, cause-effect, sequencing and story prediction skills. The story incorporates a range of winter-themed vocabulary and follows a snowman who seeks methods to 'warm up' in the chilly weather, but he ends up melting because he becomes 'too hot.' Click here for an online read aloud: https://youtu.be/zI8pFTVpKAg

2. Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan London

This book is terrific for teaching children vocabulary related to winter clothing, such as, ‘boots’, ‘scarves’, ‘pants’, ‘mittens.’  We also like to use this book to help children learn the steps and sequence for getting dressed on colder days, using temporal terms like, ‘first, second, last.’  Click here for an online read aloud: https://youtu.be/wIRX_MLZitQ

3. Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner

This book helps teach and reinforce the prepositions ‘over’ and ‘under’ by showcasing a variety of forest animals that live ‘underneath’ the snow in the wintertime. Click here for an online read aloud: https://youtu.be/b1FXGasBtfU 

4. The Snowman by Raymond Briggs

This excellent book is ideal for developing emergent literacy skills such as retelling stories and describing a sequence of events using the story's illustrations.. It's also wonderful to use without reading the actual text, allowing your children to create the story in their own words using their imaginations.

Click here for an online read aloud: https://youtu.be/WjYvAevbgNQ 

5. Polar Bear, Polar Bear what do you hear? By Bill Martin Jr.

This book educates children on animals that live in cold climates, while also asking the question, "What do you hear?" with the response, "I hear the + animal." We use it to teach the construction of expanded sentences using sentence starter frames, along with picture supports. This allows children to choose from images of the animals featured in the story when asked, "What do you hear?"

Click here for an online read aloud: https://youtu.be/WaTZaOolniU 

6. Ten on the Sled by Kim Norman

This book is as catchy as ‘ten little monkeys jumping on the bed’ and teaches a variety of winter verbs (e.g. slip, slide, slick, glide, ride). It also uses rhyming words (e.g. ‘sled, said’) and repetitive phrases throughout the book. For your emergent readers, highlight the words that rhyme on one page and then see if your child can find the rhyming words throughout the story.  Click here for an online read aloud: https://youtu.be/j42SIL_uugM

7. Bunny Slopes by Claudia Rueda

This interactive book is wonderful for engaging its young readers by asking them to perform various actions to help a bunny ‘ski’ down a hill. Teaching a variety of verbs, children will be asked to ‘shake’, ‘tap’, ‘tilt’, and ‘turn’ the book (and more) to help guide the bunny ski down the snow slopes.

Click here for an online read aloud: https://youtu.be/Nlx7SUZaQxk

8. Bizzy Bear: Snow Fun by Benjie Davies

We love The Bizzy Bear board book series – especially for children ages 1-4 years. This book enables children to interact with and manipulate the pictures, making it excellent for teaching cause and effect and capturing the attention of even the youngest readers. The text features repetitive, rhyming words, which are crucial for developing phonological awareness skills.Click here for an online read aloud: https://youtu.be/kT8n2gzfPyU

Children with speech and language disorders frequently face challenges learning to read and write. One of our roles as pediatric Speech Language Pathologists is to help caregivers provide their child with a variety of high-quality emergent literacy activities at home – to help establish and strengthen the skills that are necessary for learning to read and write.

To learn more about the importance of 'emergent literacy' and the early intervention roles of speech therapists, visit: https://www.asha.org/public/speech/emergent-literacy/

 ABOUT US:

Sunny Spot Speech provides private speech therapy services and evaluations for kids in home, online, at your child's preschool, daycare, private school, or at another community location throughout Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. We have an incredible and growing team of bilingual (Spanish and English speaking) Los Angeles based Speech Language Pathologists who are knowledgeable in the assessment and treatment of a wide range of communicative disorders, including (but not limited to) children with Language Disorders and Developmental Delays, Hearing Loss, AAC users, Fluency disorders, Articulation and Phonological Disorders, Childhood Apraxia of Speech, and Gestalt Language Processors.

We provide bilingual pediatric speech therapy services in the following Los Angeles locations: Northridge, Granada Hills, Encino, Tarzana, Woodland Hills, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Van Nuys, San Fernando, Valley Village, Burbank, Calabasas.

Contact us for a free phone consultation if you’re concerned about your child’s speech, language or communication abilities: Phone: 818-350-3107 or Email: info@sunnyspotspeech.com.