Articulation Therapy, Books for Therapy, Random Therapy Ideas, Worth Every Penny

Sideways Stories for Spot-on Therapy

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Granted, I’m not all that old, but I like to think I can say things like, “waaaaaaay back in the day, I read all 3 Wayside School books.”  Hats off to Louis Sachar for creating some of the weirdest, yet best books I ever read as a kid! Sideways Stories from Wayside School is a book about Wayside School: 30 stories high with one classroom per story (except for the 19th floor).  The stories are admittedly very strange, but seem to have just the right length of chapters (short), difficulty level, and “weirdness” for elementary-aged kids.  I don’t know if I identified with this school because my elementary school in Winchester, MA, Lincoln Elementary, had one grade per floor (not one classroom per floor, but I still thought it was cool) or what, but anyone from my “generation” who has ever run across this book has loved it.

My personal copy had long since disappeared, but when I came across a tattered and torn copy at my local Goodwill store I had to have it immediately-and it fit the grad student budget juuuuuuust right!  I decided to introduce it to my artic client this quarter- a 9 yr. old boy working on his /s/, /z/, and postvocalic /r/ sounds-once he reached the reading linguistic level for productions.  Not only did he LOVE the book (mom and dad went out to buy their own copy that day), but just think of all the target sounds I was getting in just the title alone: Sideways Stories from Wayside School.  With characters like Mrs. Gorf, Louis, and Miss Zarves, it was a target-sound-gold-mine!

I think there’s sometimes an inclination to default to cool technology with all the bells and whistles in therapy, especially with the 9, 10, 11 year olds.  Don’t get me wrong, we pulled the iPad out all the time and there was never a shortage of basketball throwing or tennis ball “darts.”  BUT, as a recent kid myself, I think it’s still hugely important to remind kids that reading aloud can be a great chance to practice target sounds and have a ball at the same time!  The Wayside School magic just seems to get kids hooked and offer countless opportunities for great productions. In addition to Sideways Stories from Wayside School, there’s also Wayside School is Falling Down and Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger.

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Hanna Bogen, M.S., CCC-SLP is a Speech-Language Pathologist and Social-Cognitive Specialist. With a primary focus on therapies and interventions that support self-regulation and social communication, Hanna consults and collaborates in multiple schools to bring social-regulation, executive functioning, mindfulness, and social-cognitive strategies into the classrooms. She has trained K-12 teachers and educational specialists across the U.S. to support them in meeting the needs of all learners in their classrooms. In addition to her school consultation, Hanna provides individual and group therapy in the areas of articulation, language development, self-regulation, executive functioning, and social communication. Hanna is the co-owner of Executive Functioning Junction and the co-developer of the Brain Talk curriculum, which teaches students about brain functioning to improve metacognition and self-regulation skills. She holds a B.A. from Linfield College and a M.S. from the University of Washington.

2 thoughts on “Sideways Stories for Spot-on Therapy”

  1. This is 100 percent the greatest book a child could ever read. I remember I wanted to get Maggie to read them back when she was nine, but the family was like DON’T EVEN BOTHER, SHE WON’T CARE. Which broke my heart. Remember room 19? Of course you don’t. There is no room 19. There is no Miss Zarves.

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  2. I have 3 boys and they have all loved Sideways Stories. We even found them on tape and we listened to them in the car every day. You can’t go wrong with these stories!

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