In case you don’t know, wordless picture books are one of the most versatile, useful materials you can have for speech therapy! I’ve worked in 3 different settings since graduation. This has turned me into a material hoarder as there are very few materials that are appropriate for all of the children I’ve worked with! Wordless picture books continue to be one of my most used materials for ALL ages/ability levels. I just love them! My middle school students still think they are cool – and that is a big win! Below are my ten favorites that I use all the time!

I’ve got a wordless picture book, now what?

Wordless picture books are magical because they work at your student’s level.

Are you working with students just learning AAC? You can tell the story with simple language, core words, and lots of modeling.

Do you have students communicating at the single word level? Narrate the story in small, two word batches to model language one level higher than the child is using.

Are you working on specific grammatical structures or vocabulary? Wordless picture books are filled with whatever language you give them. You’re in total control of the story.

Assessment with wordless picture books

Wordless picture books are excellent for collecting some informal data. Language samples really are a critical part of the language evaluation process. If you think it takes forever, it really doesn’t and I’ve shared some handy shortcuts that make language sample analysis easier than ever!

Here’s the catch though – language samples from conversation won’t be representative of a child’s best language. Books are written at a more varied, higher language level than conversation. When telling, or retelling a story, children use more complicated language.

If you need a little more structure to help guide your storytelling, SALT software has scripts in English and Spanish you can use for the classic Mercer Meyer Frog books. Don’t worry, you don’t have to dust off your rusty grad school SALT skills if you don’t want to. However, take note that SALT does have databases of normative data on story retell for Spanish and English retells, which could be valuable information (see their website for more info).

And, speaking of bilingual or even multi-lingual populations, dynamic assessment is the best practice for collecting data since we can’t rely on standardized testing for these kids. You can learn more about the process here, but basically, you tell a story and have the child retell the story, then give the child 1-2 short teaching sessions, then retest to see if the child is able to quickly synthesize and use the new information. Children with true language disorders won’t be able to learn and adapt with just 1-2 teaching sessions.

While the child is retelling their story, there is so much you can observe:

• Do they include critical story grammar elements? Are they telling a story or just describing pictures?
• Is the story in a logical order?
• Is the child using appropriate grammar (syntax and morphology)? Combining sentences and using complex grammar for older children?
• Does the child use transition words (such as before, then, after that)?
• Does the child use specific vocabulary you used during your telling, especially any age appropriate tier two type vocabulary words (or are they having trouble thinking of specific words or using general terms like “thing”)?
• Is the child making any inferences or connections between feelings and actions?

You can also probe some basic wh- story comprehension questions after the retelling to see if the child understands what those wh- questions mean.

And now, therapy!

Assessment is just the beginning when it comes to wordless picture books! There is so much you can target in therapy:

Story Grammar: naturally, telling and retelling stories will fit right in with any story grammar goals

Wh- Questions: work on one kind of wh-question or a mix, depending on your student’s level.

Syntax: model target grammatical structures on every page or use transition words to work on increasingly complex sentence structures

Semantics: use tier 2 vocabulary or multiple meaning words to describe pictures and talk about meaning in context (I like to combine this with an on-topic vocabulary strategy worksheet to make sure I’m teaching vocabulary strategies and not just drilling vocabulary!)

Inferencing and Predicting: wordless picture books are perfect for inferencing and predicting because the pictures are usually very detailed to let you know what’s going on.

Describing: likewise, the detailed illustrations usually give you plenty of material for working on describing

Comparing and Contrasting: you can compare and contrast two characters, objects, scenes, etc.

Really, the sky is the limit!

Wordless picture books to inspire you

Here are my top 10 favorite wordless picture books that I use all the time!

I love wordless picture books so much, I fulfilled a lifelong dream and created and released my own wordless picture story specifically designed for speech therapy!! Searching For Home is a story about a girl who encounters a space alien. Originally printed and sold in physical form, they are sold out for now, but you can get a digital version from my store. I included a whole book unit to help you target story grammar, vocabulary, and basically every language goal on your caseload!

My readers recommended these additional, awesome wordless picture books!

So, did I miss any of your favorites? I’d LOVE to add some to my collection so let me know in the comments!

{thanks for reading}