Introducing…. the Story System! ✨
The Story System is an example procedure/sequence for how to use my story units. But really, it can be used with any story, picture book, or text. (more coming on that soon!)
It’s a way to target any language skill in a contextualized, meaningful, motivating way!
This system can easily be adapted for a wide variety of student needs and goals. In my story units, I even include examples of four different levels of unique, adapted activities.
This series of steps might take several weeks, giving you opportunities for re-reads of the story as needed for each child or group.
Your story units can also be expanded with extension activities, videos, games, other books, texts, and much, much more.
I can’t wait to share more about the Story System with you today. And if you want to download a preview showing even more examples of activities I’d do in therapy, make sure to make it to the end of this post!
Here’s more information on each step in the Story System:
1 🔴 Introduction and Preview
Activities that activate background knowledge and set the stage for comprehension success.
Example Activities: Visuals, K/W/L chart, predicting, previewing vocabulary/story structure
2 📖 Read the Story
Follow dialogic reading principles where the child is the storyteller and the adult listens, reflects, and questions.
3 🟣 Macrostructure
Activities that focus on the big picture: sequencing, story elements, & structure.
Example Activities: sequencing, WH question information, story grammar, story structure
4 🔵 Vocabulary
Example Activities: direct vocabulary instruction, sorts, describing, affixes
5 🟢 Syntax
Activities that focus on sentence-level formulation and comprehension.
Example Activities: sentence building, sentence deconstruction, defining, sentence combining
6 🟡 Comprehension
Activities that assess how well the story was understood.
Example Activities: answering comprehension questions, story summarizing, story retell
7 🟠 Writing
Production/expression focused activities that allow for creativity and generalization, as well as synthesizing previously targeted skills.
Example Activities: parallel story, shared writing, topic writing, opinion writing, storytelling
The Story System can be used with a variety of language levels, goals, students, and groups. In my story units, I also include related speech sound activities, AAC supports, and example activities for four different levels (so it’s easier to customize for each student or group).
Here’s two examples of two different levels within the Story System so you can see how easy it is to adapt the steps above for any student:
Level One –
Introduction: Introduce any supports, visuals, schedules, etc…
Preview: Explore and make guesses about the story pictures.
Read the Story: Model AAC and/or visuals during shared reading.
Macrostructure: Sequence the story and discuss WH question information (who, where, when, etc…).
Vocabulary: Target core vocabulary words related to the story.
Syntax: Create simple sentences related the story.
Comprehension: Answer simple questions about the story using visuals.
Writing: Participate in shared writing activities.
Level Four –
Introduction: Fill out a K/W/L chart and make predictions about the story.
Preview: Preview tier 2 vocabulary words from the story. Preview the story structure/story path.
Read the Story: Read the story together.
Macrostructure: Discuss the structure of the story using a story path.
Vocabulary: Provide direct vocabulary instruction on words from the story. Study a related affix.
Syntax: Combine and deconstruct sentences from the story.
Comprehension: Retell the story and assess it for completeness.
Writing: Write a parallel story with the same story structure.
As you can see, the Story System can be simple or advanced depending on the student/group and their individual needs and goals!
If you want to learn more about my new Story System and see a ton of example activities, click the button below to download a huge preview from the information file from my Searching for Home story unit. It’s a sample of what is included in that story unit, except in the real thing every activity is directly linked making it easy to quickly access what you need.
Download PreviewHope this information is helpful!
To learn more about narrative skills (including some of the research behind it!), click here.
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Searching for Home Story Unit
Searching for Home is an original wordless picture book created specifically with SLPs in mind! Easily target everything from character description to story comprehension, from core vocabulary to tier 2 vocabulary words, and from simple sentence formulation to sentence combining using JUST ONE BOOK!
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I really like this approach to language therapy especially for students who are quite a bit below grade level. I was wondering how you would write a goal for this approach or would you make separate goals for each skill and just use this approach to target them?
Hi! I write goals normally, and generally try to write as few as possible to make data collection and progress monitoring as easy as possible. I have tons of goal examples in my goal bank here: https://speechymusings.com/goals/