Shared book reading is a literature based language intervention that works well with children with language difficulty. Literature based intervention is an effective way of teaching students language and literacy skills. Speech-language pathologists who use this method don't actually teach reading skills, or decoding skills. Instead, they focus on the underlying language that underpins all literacy. Text-based intervention has a strong contextual base. This is important, because learning abstract language concepts within a familiar context helps to alleviate the problems associated with decontextualized language.
Shared book reading's primary goal is for an adult to use a story book as a therapeutic tool to improve language knowledge and use. This is done by using the text and illustrations in a picture book as the source of language stimulation. The language is essentially examined and parsed in detail using the text and pictures in a children's story book. The number of language goals that can be gained from one passage in a well written children's book is quite amazing.
It's enjoyable to use text-based language intervention. The students tend to enjoy it too. That's because they get to think and learn about literacy and language in a new way that is interesting to them.
For more information, see www.Speechlanguage-Resources.com
