Basic Consonants for Artic

I entered a contest a while ago for a set of books from Northern Speech Services. If you haven't heard of this company, I highly recommend visiting their amazing website. I love that they have therapy materials as well as CEU courses (they are probably a bit more medically based than school-based). I love looking at their catalog and highlighting items that I hope to buy someday.

The Basic Consonant Books

I didn't have my blog up and running at that point so the thought of reviewing this product never came to mind. I thought I would share my thoughts on them now that I have the time to do a review justice. Please keep in mind that this is my opinion....

The set includes 9 books:

(b) Bunny Bop (k) Katey the Kung fu Kangaroo (h) Hanna Hippo (g) Gooey Gum (n) Nifty Noodles (d) Danny Dragon (t) Timmy Turtle (m) Let's Make Music (p) Patty the Pink Pig  The books are short with kid-friendly vocabulary and illustrations.  The group of 1st & 2nd graders that I worked with read Hanna Hippo. These students generally HATE books  (both are very poor readers), but they followed along with the story readily. The text and story were simple.  Hanna the Hippo loves to laugh and goes around her town to share a laugh with her friends.  The author provides ample opportunities to practice your target sound. My students were laughing as they  imitated Hanna the Hippo's laughter throughout the story. I was also able to use this story to talk about  sequencing, which friends did Hanna laugh with first and what happened to Hanna at the end of the story?  Pros: 1. Ample opportunity to practice target sound 2. Kid friendly text & vocabulary (also introduces some new words to discuss with your students--  like how a pig can also be called a "hog") 3. Each book has a list of target words and sight words at the end of the story.  4. You can easily use the story to incorporate sequencing of events (if that's a goal for your student) 5. The books are small so they don't take up a ton of room (which is important if your room is a closet like mine) Cons: 1. The books may be a little babyish for older kids (3 grade & up) Overall, I am really pleased with these books and hope that I will be able to get the complex consonant set  someday in the future.