I love using books particularly Dear Zoo in speech therapy. Reading books and using them in therapy helps develop important pre-reading skills. Books can be highly engaging and most children like to listen to an adult reading them a story. Books can also get children get excited about the activities they are about do in therapy. For more information on why we should read to children, click here.
Rod Campbell’s Dear Zoo is one of my favourites and just as important (or more so), it’s one of the children’s favourites too. It has a very simple and predictable pattern which makes it easy for children with poor receptive language skills to understand. The pictures are simple and engaging and, hey, what kid does not like to lift up the flaps in the book. Here are some ideas on how to use Dear Zoo in speech therapy.
Vocabulary
Dear Zoo is great for teaching vocabulary. This book is not only great for teaching the names of different zoo animals but it also uses describing words such as jumpy, fierce, grumpy and naughty which might be new to the children. Children love to act out the different descriptions. It also makes a great movement break for those children who need to get the wiggles out.
Personal Pronouns
Dear Zoo is also an excellent way to teach personal pronouns. The book naturally uses I and they in the story but I’ll often switch out those words for we, he and she. I’ll write out the words on post-it notes and put them over the words in the story. You can use dolls or puppets as the people who are writing the letter for a pet.
Have different animals out and give them as pets to the different dolls or puppets. Have the children use the appropriate pronouns as they hand out the pets. They can talk about the pet they are going to keep. E.g., I’m going to have the dog.
Using Core Words
Dear Zoo can also be a great book to work on core words. You can target words such as I, want, asked, sent, for, they, in, out, open, or not. If you have figurines or stuffies of the animals in different containers. Have the children re-enact the story or play with the animals. Put the animals in and take them out of the container. Ask for different animals.
Describing
Children also like to talk about their pets. For those children who don’t have pets (and for some who do), I like them to tell me about the pet they would most like to have. For some of the older children I will have them draw out their dream pet. This is great for expanding their sentence length or the amount of information they provide in conversation.
Have the children describe the different animals from the book. For example, talk about the giraffe being tall with spots, or a snake being long. You can also describe the containers the animals came in. Lastly, you can also compare the different animals.
Artic Therapy
I will also use Dear Zoo to work on articulation. It is great for targeting “S” initial. I’ll have the children say “sent” while reading the story and we will sometimes send things to the post office. It is also great for working on “K” final (back) and frequently I’ll use Dear Zoo to target “me” with many children diagnosed with a severe speech sound disorder.
Using Dear Zoo in speech therapy has been a great tool when working with little ones and is definitely one of my favourites. If you are looking for more activities to use with Dear Zoo, check out this book companion on TpT (click here). If you would like a handout for parents on how to build language skills by reading (click here) Do you use Dear Zoo with your students/clients?
