Narrative Intervention: Beyond "Cute" Stories and Lesson Plans (with Jane Gebers)

When you’re teaching storytelling with students, do your lessons feel kind of…random?

I used to feel like this a lot when I was a school SLP, so if you’ve ever had a “throw spaghetti at the wall” therapy session that felt all over the place, I get it.

The truth is, repetition and drill is not the enemy. If you ONLY focus on unstructured activities, you’re probably seeing students getting overwhelmed, not remembering to apply important language skills (like syntax, vocabulary words, etc). 

But if you ONLY stick with structured activities, kids never get the chance to apply and practice. 

That’s why leveraging books and story grammar as part of your “therapy toolkit” can be such a powerful tool to bridge this gap…even though many storytelling activities look like simple “cutesy” activities on the surface.

(and if you understand the “why” it’s much easier to apply for older kids who are kind of over coming to therapy). 

In this second half of my interview with my colleague Jane Gebers, we talk about how to use tools like dynamic assessment and narrative intervention to make therapy structured, rigorous, and functional.

Jane L. Gebers is the author of the popular resource, Books Are for Talking, Too!, first published in 1990, and now in its 4th edition as of March 2023. A practicing speech-language pathologist for over 40 years, she has worked in public school, hospital, private, and clinical settings. She has been an adjunct professor at St. Mary’s College of California and other universities where she taught Language Development, Assessment, and Intervention courses to students pursuing special education credentials. She currently holds a private practice in Northern California.

You can connect with Jane on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-l-gebers-53856119/

Email her at jane@soundingyourbest.com

Learn more about her book, Books Are For Talking, Too! here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C2SG8J58?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_RR4P3SB19A92WD6FPD3R

Learn more about her storytelling resources and speech therapy services on her website here: http://soundingyourbest.com/

In this episode, I mentioned Language Therapy Advance Foundations, my program that gives speech pathologists a framework for building language skills needed to thrive in school, social situations, and daily life. You can learn more about the program here: https://drkarenspeech.com/languagetherapy

I also mentioned the Art and Science of Narrative Language, my program that gives speech pathologists and educational professionals a process for evaluating and supporting narrative language. You can learn more about the program here: https://drkarenspeech.lpages.co/art-science-narratives-blog-297/