Great Books SLPs will Love to Read: ‘They All Saw a Cat’
SLPs love to read great books! The featured book this week is ‘They All Saw a Cat’ by Brendan Wenzel.
Teaching kids to take the perspectives of others is a difficult task for all parents, and part of the work we do to help them become caring individuals.
Autistic children learn to be kind and caring easily enough, but seeing things from another’s perspective can be hard.
Pictures can help! It is a concrete way to start showing our students on the spectrum that people can look at things in a different way. The illustrations in this book can be used for a variety of age levels.
Tips for Mixed Groups
Describing
Students describe what each cat looks like and try to provide an adjective that best suits that cat.
Perspective Taking Skills
Look at the pictures of the cat and talk about who saw the cat that way.
- Did they all see the cat the same way?
- Who saw the cat as scary?
- Who saw the cat as furry?
Explaining
- How did each character see the cat?
- Why do you think they saw it that way?
Syntax
Students working on past tense can say the repetitive refrains using ‘walked’ and ‘saw.’
Speech
Have your articulation students fill in these repetitive words or phrases. R-‘whiskers, ears and paws’, ‘through the world’S-‘saw’
‘They All Saw a Cat’ by Brendan Wenzel is a great book! See if your library has it! Until next time, enjoy!