If you love weaving books into speech and language therapy, this episode is absolutely your lane.
In this conversation, Kelly breaks down a 2025 scoping review on early language development and reading aloud, then translates it into five practical literacy “hacks” you can use with preschool and early elementary students starting tomorrow.
She pulls zero punches about the study design: you’ll hear exactly what a scoping review is (and isn’t), why it doesn’t carry the same weight as a systematic review or meta-analysis, and how to use it wisely as an “idea generator” rather than gospel. From there, she layers in two decades of clinical experience and walks through the habits that actually move the needle in real therapy rooms.
You’ll hear about:
- Why this 2025 scoping review on reading aloud and early language is best viewed as an “idea article”
- How the authors used PCC (Population, Context, Concept) to narrow 1,000+ studies down to 106
- Why repetitive, predictable books (like The Gingerbread Man or Brown Bear, Brown Bear) allow diverse learners to participate at a higher level
- How to rethink “social stories” using a Brown Bear-style repetitive frame and a child’s favorite characters for more powerful behavior change
- What Universal Design for Learning actually looks like in speech therapy when you go all-in on multimodal cueing
- How multisensory, multimodal activities (print, props, movement, AAC, writing) especially support autistic students and kids with attention and motor planning challenges
- Why connecting books to real-world roles and prior knowledge (“You’re the zookeeper…”) drives deeper language and thinking than fact-based WH questions
- Simple language shifts that move you away from quizzing (“What color is…?”) toward higher-level thinking (“I wonder why…”, “Tell me about a time…”)
- How predictable literacy routines reduce cognitive load and move kids out of fight/flight and into learning
- Why the interaction itself matters more than any single treatment target or book choice
- How prepping rich, ready-to-go materials frees you to be fully present in the interaction (where the real “magic” happens)
By the end, you’ll walk away with five concrete literacy routines you can plug into your week and a much clearer lens for judging research quality while still using it creatively.
Want these literacy hacks done for you every week?
If you’re ready to stop reinventing the wheel and want literacy-based, movement-rich activities that already embed these principles, join the SIS Membership.
Inside SIS, you get:
- Weekly Google Slides decks built around repetitive, predictable books
- Multimodal, multisensory activities (movement, props, print, AAC, writing) you can use with your entire caseload
- Treatment targets that are already leveled and ready to go, so you can focus on the interaction instead of scrambling for materials
Join SIS here and grab everything instantly:
👉 https://www.kellyvess.com/sis
Annika, A., & Johanna, L. (2025). Early language development and reading aloud with children: A scoping review and content analysis. International Journal of Educational Research Open, 9, 100508.
