10 No Prep Speech Therapy Activities You Can Do with Any Children's Book

One of my favorite activities for speech therapy, from preschool through elementary school, is simple, low-tech, and available in almost every therapy room: children’s books. Picture books are one of the most versatile tools in speech therapy, and you can target almost any speech therapy goal with just a little creativity.

Here are 10 easy book-based activities you can use with any children’s book in your speech therapy sessions:

1. Story Scan

Before reading, flip through the pages and look at the pictures. Ask questions like:

• “What do you think will happen?”

• “What do you see on this page?”

• “Why do you think she is making that face?”

This builds prediction, vocabulary, and inferencing skills before you even start the story.

2. Find the Target Sound

If you’re working on articulation, have students listen for or point out words containing their target sound. For example, if they’re practicing /s/, have them shout “stop!” whenever they hear an /s/ word.

Pro tip: Pair it with a halting cue that includes their target sound: /f/ → “freeze,” /r/ → “red light,” /l/ → “let’s pause.”

For older students, provide a clipboard and paper so they can write down as many words with their sound as possible. After the book, have them read each word aloud. Adding a challenge, like finding the most words or beating their previous score, boosts engagement and repetition.

3. WH Questions

Pause as you read and ask simple who, what, where, when, and why questions. This supports comprehension, expressive language, and longer responses.

• Increase the difficulty of the questions and increase general knowledge by asking related questions that don’t have picture answer cues included in the book. “What is that” – a bee. “What sound do bees make” – buzz. “Where do bees live?” – in a hive. “What food do bees make?” – honey.

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4. Retell the Story

After finishing, ask the student to retell the story in their own words. This is great for checking comprehension and practicing sequencing skills.

• Give cues as needed to encourage students to use character names, places, and specific details.

• Prompt your student to use effective sequencing terms such as “first, before, after, next, last” to increase comprehensibility.

• Encourage your student to make inferences and draw conclusions about the story during retell.

5. Act It Out

Choose a page or event in the story and act it out together. Movement keeps kids engaged and naturally supports pragmatics, verb use, and narrative skills.

6. Describe It

Pick an object or character from the book and use prompts like:

• What does it look like?

• Where do you find it?

• What does it do?

This is perfect for expanding vocabulary and expressive language and targeting adjectives/describing goals.

7. Category Sorting

Pull out words from the book and group them into categories (e.g., animals, foods, places). This builds semantic connections and strengthens word retrieval.

Another variation: Name a category, then flip through the book and have students find as many items in that category as possible.

8. Three Random Things

After reading, ask the student to name three things that happened in the story. You can layer additional targets:

• Sequencing: Ask them to put the events in order.

• Social-emotional: Ask how each event made them feel.

• Comprehension: Ask why each event was important.

• Inference: Ask how the story would have changed if an event didn’t happen.

  
  

9. Emotion Check-In

Discuss how characters feel in different parts of the story. Ask, “How do you know they feel that way?” This is excellent for practicing perspective-taking, inferences, and social communication skills.

10. Rhyming Challenge

If the book includes rhymes, point them out as you read. Then stop and have the student generate a new rhyme.

Another fun option for rhyming books (like Dr. Seuss): play a Red Light / Green Light version. The child says “green light” to start reading, and when they hear a rhyme, they say “red light,” stop, and identify the rhyming words. This usually leads to lots of giggles and high engagement!

Looking for a way to share these ideas with families? I’ve created a simple parent handout you can send home to support carryover.