“I Can Play That” is the latest in a series of wonderful resources to encourage language development through reading by Dr. Susan Lederer. Her first two interactive storybooks, “I Can Say That” and “I Can Do That” provide simple repetitive stories that include target words and animals sounds that have been shown to be part of a child’s earliest vocabularies.
Her newest book, “I Can Play That” includes two sequenced stories common to a preschooler’s play–a tea party and the goodnight routine of putting teddy bear to bed. The books are helpful in teaching parents how to use a book to teach their child and encourage language development progressing through reading the text, singing it, playing it and then re-telling the story using the sequencing vocabulary of first, next, and then and last. Included is a CD-ROM that provides a Spanish book and song version and down-loadable pictures. Dr. Suzy’s tips teach parents how to go deeper in the reading, language learning experience and the importance of pretend play while interacting with their child.
I have found that as speech therapists, we spend a lot of time with parents of delayed toddlers, teaching the parents how to play, read and interact with their child to build speech and language. Reading and talking “about” a book a well as extending the story to a play experience doesn’t always come naturally to parents. “I Can Play That” teaches them just that while having fun. I recommend this series for speech therapists working with little ones whose language is just emerging, and parents as an excellent teaching tool to further their child’s progress.
The above opinions are solely those of the author. The books were provided for review by Children’s Publishing
