There was an Old Lady who Facilitated Language Development: Ways to Target Language Goals with Picture Books

Providing exposure to picture books to improve reading, literacy, and language skills is an essential part of the SLP scope of practice, especially when working with a pediatric population. This article aims to provide a refresher/prompt new ideas for how to use books in speech therapy. Here are 8 ways to incorporate commonly written language goals into reading a picture book that will make reading fun! 

Favorite Books

 “There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed….” are some of my favorite books to use in speech! They can be used to target a plethora of goals including “wh-” questions, labeling, inferences, categories, and many more goals. “There was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow” is perfect for the time of year when each student is anticipating a snow day! It brings up a great conversation piece to naturalistically incorporate expressive language opportunities. The author, Lucille Colandro, writes these books for almost every occasion/holiday. This article will be based on this specific book series, but keep in mind, these goals can be implemented in almost any picture book. 

“Wh- Questions” and Labeling 

Children’s books provide many opportunities to pause and examine each picture. This can provide a great opportunity to prompt the child with a question. “There was an Old Lady Who…” books are a great way to pose questions in a silly way (e.g., “Oh, no! She is being so silly. What is she swallowing now?!”). The author of these books embeds different animals into each picture scene. I often stop and ask “where” questions to find where each animal is hiding out. Finding each animal’s new hiding spot gives multiple trials to practice “wh” questions, allows many trials for labeling common nouns, and it helps keep students engaged in the story. 

Basic Concepts: Positional Words

One commonly written goal for early language is understanding and expressing basic concepts such as positional words. This goal can be used in conjunction with “where” questions. That’s two goals in one! For example, we see above there is a deer. This is a great opportunity to ask a question or model language. For example, “Look, the deer is on top of the hill now!”. 

Inferences

One of my most favorite ways to use children’s picture books is for inferencing, and this book series is a wonderful way to target that goal. In this picture book, the “Cold Lady” swallowed snow, a pipe, coal, a scarf, sticks, and a hat. She hiccups twice and out pops… a snowman! As SLPs, we can encourage inference skills by asking questions with each page (e.g., “ I don’t know why she swallowed some snow. Perhaps you know?” and “What would she be doing with all of these silly things?”). It is always exciting to see when a student puts each item together and discovers the character’s master plan. 

Categories

At the end of the book, reexamining each item presented is a great way to introduce categories. For instance, we can categorize items that can be worn, items of the same color, or items found outside vs. inside. The pictures in each book along with verbal cues from the SLP are a great way to get the student thinking about the function/category of each item. 

Final Thoughts

While I have a love for this book series and the many ways that language can be incorporated into this silly story, it is important to note that these goals can be implemented in almost every picture book. If your caseload loves it, you can even create your own materials or visuals from the story to further target each goal. 

Emilee Burnette, M.S., CF-SLP