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Birthday Books to Celebrate Your Child
As a mom of two little ones and a pediatric speech-language pathologist, I’m always thinking about how everyday moments — like getting ready for a birthday — can spark rich language learning. One of my favorite ways to do this? Through books. Birthdays are full of exciting, familiar routines: baking cakes, sending invitations, opening gifts, singing songs. These predictable events make birthday books a perfect opportunity for language growth. When kids can anticipate what’s coming next in a story, they’re more likely to join in, use new words, and retell the story later — all key skills for building strong communication. So today, in honor of my 5 year old’s…
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Promoting Phonological Awareness through Books with Rhyming Text
As a pediatric SLP and mom of two busy, curious toddlers - I’m always on the hunt for ways to make learning both meaningful and fun. One of my favorite tools? Rhyming books! In this post, I’ll share why rhyming stories do more than just entertain - they help build critical early language skills like phonological awareness, which lays the foundation for reading success. Check out this list of some of our family’s favorite rhyming reads that get my kids giggling and learning. Whether you’re a fellow parent, a teacher, or a caregiver, you’ll walk away with simple, playful ways to support early literacy - one rhyme at a time.
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Helping Kids Navigate Big Emotions: Books to Help Your Child Process Feeling MAD
As a pediatric SLP and a mom of two busy little ones, I know firsthand how intense and confusing being mad can be for kids (and for us grown-ups, too!). Whether it’s a full-blown meltdown over a broken toy or frustration after a tough day, helping our kids recognize, understand, and express their anger in healthy ways is such an important part of their emotional development. Books can be incredibly powerful tools in these moments. They offer language for feelings, provide safe and relatable stories, and open the door for conversations that help kids feel seen and understood. Books can help support your voice as a parent trying to teach…
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3 Books Promoting the use of AAC Devices
This blog post explores a thoughtful collection of children's books that feature characters who use AAC to communicate. These stories not only promote awareness and inclusion but also empower kids who use AAC by showing them represented in literature. The post highlights a range of titles—from picture books to early readers—that celebrate diverse ways of communicating, teach empathy, and normalize the use of communication devices in everyday life. Whether you’re a parent, educator, or therapist, these books provide a meaningful way to spark conversations about communication differences and support language development through storytelling.
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Books that Promote Autism Acceptance, Neurodiversity, & Inclusion
April is Autism Acceptance Month, and April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day. Let’s promote awareness and acceptance year round, and start by having conversations about neurodiversity at home! As a speech language pathologist who has worked in pediatrics for almost 10 years, there is one major thing I’ve learned – as clinicians, we are always learning! As a mom of an almost 5-year-old and a 3-year-old, my goal is to start talking about neurodiversity early. Here are some books we’ve added to our library that have been helpful so far, especially with my oldest! Books that Promote Autism Acceptance, Neurodiversity, & Inclusion Reading with your kids is a great…
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Best Spring Books for Toddlers & Young Kids
We are all so. ready. for spring. Am I right? Before having kids, I always loved implementing seasonal and themed books into therapy sessions whenever possible. As a mom of a 3YO & 4YO, I love storing our seasonal books. When it’s time to pull them out, it feels like old friends. Seriously. One of the best things? My kids have come to love the day we pull out seasonal books for whatever is coming up next! It feels like Christmas morning without buying any presents, and that is a parenting win. So let’s get into it! Our current *growing list* of spring favorites, sorted by topic. See tips at…
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Best Busy Books for Toddlers & Young Kids
Calling all parents! Keep reading if you have ever found yourself in any of the following situations : Sound familiar? While there’s obviously never one solution, here’s one of my best *go-to’s* for all of the above: Busy Books. These are the *tried and true* books I throw in my bag before a doctor’s appointment with the kids, rotate in the car if we have a longer than typical drive, or pull out as an alternative to screen time. There are bins of these strategically placed throughout our house so they are always accessible and easy for us to pull out during the times in the day we need them…
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Using Storytime to Grow Your Child’s Language Skills with 3 Easy Tips
Picture this: You have a baby, and along with a lot of other things, people give you books. Then that baby grows, and at some point along the way, storytime with that toddler likely becomes a part of your daily or bedtime routine. As a parent and pediatric SLP who has worked with a lot of littles over the past 10 years, here’s one big thing I’ve learned: It is our instinct as parents to ask our kids questions. I’ll say it again: So now picture this You are reading a book to your toddler, and you end up sounding like this: Does this sound like you? If so –…
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Using Thrifted Books to Encourage Speech & Language (FEBRUARY)
Check out our favorite thrifted book finds from February, why we love them, and how you can use to encourage speech and language skills at home!
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18 Fall and Halloween Books to Increase Language
It’s that magical time of year again! Fall is my favorite season for many reasons, but one of the biggest is all of the fun themed activities and books. There are so many great books for fall and Halloween available, but I’ve developed some favorites for therapy over the past several years. I’ve also been growing our library at home as my oldest (17 months) is much more interested in books this fall and starting to choose his own favorites. (For more info on how early to start shared reading with your little one, go here!) Read on for my favorite fall/Halloween books for therapy and my own little ones,…
