The Joy of Reading Together

I love being a speech therapist.  It feels like what I was born to do.  What I have loved most is the opportunity to interact with amazing people, in my case children and young people, and use my passion and creativity to help them learn and grow.  We as therapists are always learning, and one of the areas which has always fascinated me is using books within my therapy sessions to connect, interact, teach concepts and practice all kinds of communication skills in the most fun way ever, through stories.

I have always loved stories like many “words” people and enjoy using songs and rhymes and anything that is more of a “whole” to help others see where the different “parts” fit into communication.  I have been writing in many forms since childhood including poetry, essays, stories, and over the years I have used books to support children learning WH questions and have developed a knack for demonstrating this to parents.  However, I always felt it would be great to have books which are written with the key structures highlighted for parents to read with their children.  There are some brilliant books that I often use, and many of them focused on question words throughout such as the Where’s Spot books and my go to books, Dear Zoo and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  I have collected favourites to use in therapy to focus on specific forms or concepts, and it was this passion that drove me to create my own language development stories.

Who? Hide and Seek is the first in a series designed around the WH questions.  I have written it to be read jointly and for children to listen to it many times.  Then they can join in when they feel more confident with the story and the syntax. The story has animals called by their “Animal” names for ease and involves clear syntax that is memorable and meaningful.  The question word, “who” involves more than just labelling nouns relating to people and within the declarative sentence structure, there is a syntax which needs to be learned.  This resource helps parents to understand the elements of WH questions in a natural way so they can support their children.  This is a simple story told with humour and lots of fun.  As a creative speech therapist, I often look for ways to adapt language supports through many natural situations.  I certainly have learned from the children I have supported over the years.  This project is no different.  I am pleased to be able to present this book to therapists, parents, educators and anyone looking after children.  I hope that it inspires the love of stories, words and language for children and gives them a positive experience with books for the adventure that they can be for children young and old.  You can watch a Demo Video about the book which is useful for sharing with parents and education professionals as well.