Here's a Way to Support Reading Comprehension Goals in Speech-Language Therapy: Social Comprehension

As language specialists, we can often see the language-based causes for kids who are struggling to comprehend what they read. This is part 1 of a 4-part series on how we can support our students' reading comprehension goals.

I often write about major insights I've had as an SLP on this blog. Here's a good one:

I was at a conference about social communication years ago, and the instructor said something that really puzzled me at first. She said that whenever she sees a student who buttons their shirt right up to the top button, she suspects they have poor reading comprehension.

Huh?

While this is an oversimplification, the idea was that a child who buttons every single button on their shirt, whether it's comfortable or not, is likely to be the same kind of child who follows every rule to a T, which can indicate rigid thinking or difficulties with nuance, including social nuance.

When these kids read, they may be decoding just fine; however, their reading comprehension suffers when they read texts that include nuanced or unstated inter-character dynamics.

If you recall the Simple View of Reading, introduced by Gough and Tunmer in 1986, you'll know it goes like this:

Decoding x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension

Tucked into that language comprehension component is social comprehension. A student who has difficulty understanding the perspectives of others and understanding the unspoken thoughts, feelings, and motivations behind people's actions IRL will have similar difficulties making logical social inferences when the are reading a story - or perhaps even a Social Studies lesson or a play in Drama - with these dynamics.

Here's a post I wrote about The Gruffalo, and why I think it's a big kids' book disguised as a little kids' book. The perspective-taking in this story is so complicated!

I created StoryWhys book companions to support our students' social comprehension skills; both the Comprehensive Book Companions, as well as the Spotlight on Perspective-Taking and Social Inferencing series, help students reach their reading comprehension goals by examining nuanced social dynamics in stories and using higher-level feelings/emotions vocabulary to label character feelings and inferring what characters are probably thinking.

Here are some of the StoryWhys book companions that specifically target perspective-taking:

I've seen firsthand how using these resources really deepens my students' understanding of stories. The StoryWhys Thoughts and Feelings graphic organizers can be used in many different contexts; I've even used them when my students have had misunderstandings with peers and have appreciated how they provide tangible strategies to help students see the bigger picture in a social scenario.

Watch this video for a step-by-step guide on how to support your students' ability to infer thoughts and feelings, and to take the perspectives of different storybook characters:

LEVEL UP YOUR SPEECH THERAPY ACTIVITIES WITH STORYWHYS

Did you know book companions can be among the best speech-language therapy materials for elementary students? Explore all of the StoryWhys book companions for speech therapy in my store. You'll find comprehensive book companions that target many different language skills or Spotlight Series book companions that focus on one type of skill, all using high-quality, beloved storybooks.

For quick videos to help you get the most from StoryWhys book companions, check out the YouTube channel here.

And get your FREE, 71-page book companion for speech therapy on the free downloads page.

Enjoy!