Banter Speech & Language

Sydney speech pathologists helping adults and children speak for themselves.

verbs

The High-Frequency Verb Library

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Parents, teachers, speech pathologists, lend me your ears! I have come to PRACTICE verbs, not to guess at them.

Introducing our High-Frequency Verb Library. 28 no-preparation, verb-based workouts at the sentence level. More than 650 pages: bit.ly/verblibrary

Come. See. Conquer! 

Access The High-Frequency Verb Library

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Concord West, North Strathfield, Rhodes, and Strathfield, and all other suburbs of Sydney.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP). David is a part-time Associate Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney’s Graduate School of Health. David sits on Speech Pathology Australia’s Ethics Board and Professional Standards Advisory Committee.

More verb-charged books to ignite your child’s language development

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Dear readers: I have a confession to make.

I’m a monomaniac: I have an obsessive preoccupation with one thing:

Verbs.

As a parent and speech pathologist, I just can’t get enough of them. If I get through a single language assessment or therapy session without extolling, enthusing about, lauding, celebrating, waxing lyrical about, rhapsodising over, or just plain raving on about the power of verbs to accelerate language development, it’s a miracle.

Last year, we had a terrific response to our article: Books with verbs to level up your child’s language development: 24 of the best.

But there are so many more cracking verb-books we’ve discovered since then!

Here are 11:

  • I Dreamt I was a Dinosaur by Stella Blackstone and Clare Beaton (dreamt, forage, teach, swim).
  • Charlie and Lola’s Actions by Lauren Child (skip skip skipping, hop hop hopping, bouncing, squashing, s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g).
  • Chatterbox by Margaret Wild (She twiddled her toes. She crawled. She played…she splashed…she built towers…she listened…she banged…she did everything but talk.)
  • Za-Za’s Baby Brother by Lucy Cousins (I cuddled the baby…and I pushed him…and I built him a tower).
  • Fergus in the Park by Tony Maddox (The best thing to do was…RUN!… “He’s going to catch me”…he jumped on a [skateboard]…he began to swim…the park keeper was climbing into a row boat…the ducks…with Fergus hidden in the middle…paddled slowly past the park keeper).
  • Polar by Elaine Moss (Polar kicks back his rug and dresses himself…Polar pulls his toboggan…sits in his toboggan…slowly he slides…the sledge hits a hump and Polar comes tumbling…soon he is limping).
  • Katie the Kitten by Alex Scheffler (She cleans off her paws…she bursts into song. Dancing and prancing, she miaows all night long!).
  • Oh Dear! by Rod Campbell (Grandma asked Buster to fetch the eggs. So he went to the barn…went to the sty…went to the field…went to the stable).
  • Pirate Piggywiggy by Christyan and Diane Fox (Hoist the mainsail, Teddy! On hot, sunny days we could walk the plank! At night-time we could sit around the fire singing sea shanties…On Crossbones Island we would search for treasure).
  • Tadpole’s Promise by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross (That’s twice you’ve broken your promise. Forgive me…You have broken your promise three times and now you have broken my heart).
  • The Penguin who wanted to fly by Catherine Vase (Flip-Flop climbed on top of Polar Bear and flapped his wings…he spun around and around…he waited and waited…the balloon floated upwards).

Prefer pretty pictures? Here’s the selection:

If you know of other verb-laced books we’ve yet to stumble upon, please holler, shout, alert, communicate, connect, message, email, Facebook, Tweet, correspond, or even just speak with us to let us know so we can add them to the list!

Related articles:

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).

Books with verbs to level up your child’s language development: 24 of the best

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Yes, OK! I know I go on and on about the power of verbs to power (drive, propel, and kick-start) language development. I can’t stop (or cease, or desist, or refrain from) it!

Yes, lots of kids and adults benefit from targeted practice. But you can also do great work with books, too: especially with pre-schoolers and younger school-aged kids. So, if you’re strolling (loping, darting, flitting, hurrying, or trudging) around or through your local library;

or ambling (jouncing, galumphing, lumbering, sneaking, or prowling) about a bookstore over the next few weeks, look out for (watch for, inspect, search for, check out, study, view, or scan for) books stuffed (suffused, packed, loaded, jammed, crammed, or filled) with verbs.

To help (assist, support) you in your quest for verb-laden adventures, here are 24 favourite books we recommend:

A Good Job by John Burningham (e.g. Buzz buzzes the fly…we clap but we miss it…catch the fly…swat at the fly)

Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman (I will go…)

Bibs and Boots by Alison Lester (Put on your boots…put on your coat)

Fraser’s Grump by Sue Heap (Buster barked at the…Buster barked at the…)

Grandpa and Thomas by Pamela Allen (Grandpa and Thomas go paddling. They paddle and they paddle and they paddle)

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss (Would you, could you…?)

Helping by Bob Graham (Sweep up the dust Tom)

Hurry, Hurry Mary Dear by N.M Bedecker (Dig the turnips, split the peas, cook molasses, curdle cheese)

Mr Brown Can Moo! Can You? by Dr. Seuss (He can go…)

Mr Gumpy’s Outing by John Burningham (The dog teased…the cat chased..the rabbit hopped…)

Piggybook by Anthony Browne (Mrs Piggott washed…made…vacuumed…)

Press Here by Herve Tullet (Press here and turn the page)

Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire (I can put them…)

Richard Scarry’s Best First Word Book Ever (two pages of action words)

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever (two pages of ‘things we do’ words)

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson (The frog found a… the cat found a…the bird found a…the dog found a…)

Sniff! by Matthew Van Fleet (Runny nose drips, Nose smells flowers-sniff, sniff, sniff!)

Spot’s Halloween (Helen dresses as a fairy…)

Stick Man by Julia Donaldson (A stick!…I’ll fetch it and drop it, and fetch it)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (On [Monday-Saturday] he ate through…)

The Witch’s Children by Ursula Jones (She changed the…)

Up in the Tree by Margaret Atwood (We swing in the Spring and we crawl in the Fall)

Who Sank the Boat? by Pamela Allen (Do you know who sank the boat?)

Whose Mouse Are You? by Robert Kraus (Shake my mother…free my father)

Related articles:

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).

The Verb & Pronoun Workout

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Any regular reader of our articles will know that we love working on verbs – action words like “jump”, “kick”, “think”, “write” and “saw” – for clients with language learning impairments. You can read why here and here.

In addition to building vocabularies, verbs are key to making grammatically correct sentences. An increase in verb retrieval skills helps clients with word finding difficulties or limited vocabularies to improve their ability to make and say sentences (e.g., Edwards, Tucker, & McCann, 2004; Fink, Martin, Schwartz, Saffran, & Myers, 1992; Raymer et al., 2007; Raymer & Ellsworth, 2002; also, see Nickels, 2002). For example, studies on adults with aphasia reveal that an improvement in retrieval of trained verbs can result in improved sentence production with those verbs (Raymer & Ellsworth, 2002; Schneider & Thompson, 2003).

For clients – children and adults – with language learning impairments, it’s important to focus on the right verbs. You can read about key general “all purpose” and other verbs for late talking toddlers. For older children and adults, I focus on these as well as other high frequency verbs that clients are likely to use in the real world to communicate their thoughts and needs – verbs like “find”, “give”, “help”, “come”, “put”, “sit”, “fix”, “go”, “read” and “write”. Using the research on verb frequency, and principles of functional, basic English we’ve compiled a list of over 90 key verbs we focus on first.

Sentence level practice

Rather than just practising verbs on their own, we prefer to work on verbs at the sentence-level. This is because verbs prime (help clients to recall) not only who is doing the verb action, but also what they are doing it with and to what/whom (Ferretti et al., 2001; McRae et al., 2005). For example, if working on “cut”, the client will also be primed to recall who cut (e.g. “The boy”), what he cut it with (e.g. “scissors”) and what was cut (e.g. “the gift-wrapping paper”). Instead, of saying “cut” over and over again (and depending, of course, on the client’s language skills), we would therefore practice something like:

“The boy cut the gift-wrapping paper with the scissors.”

What a high repetition verb workout looks like

To introduce sentence-level verb practice, we’ve developed a verb “workout”. It includes:

  • over 90 high-frequency verbs illustrated with high quality photos (rather than line drawings or – shudder – terrible clip art); and
  • short sentence scaffolds to practice multiple verbs in present and past tense with a variety of different subjective pronouns (I/he/she/they).

Each verb card:

  • features three forms of the verb: e.g. stop, stopping and stopped; and
  • a marking  (-, +, *) to indicate whether the past tense form of the verb is:
    • – regular, unvoiced (e.g. “stopped”, “danced”);
    • + regular, voiced (e.g. “carried, “played”); or
    • * irregular (e.g. “got”, “did”, “made”, “threw”, “ate”, “took”, “held”, “sat”, “hit”) – particularly useful if the child or adult is overgeneralising.

The markings help us to sort the cards quickly in different ways to focus on specific targets.

We love using this resource in our clinic. Through our publishing arm, we are happy to share it with parents and families of children and adults who struggle to use verbs in sentences correctly here. We hope you find it as useful as we have.

Download The Verb and Pronoun Workout now!

 

Related articles:

Principal source of information about verbs (and for more information about verb production therapy for people with aphasia):  Edmondsa, L.A., & Babba, M. (2011). Effect of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment in Moderate-to-Severe Aphasia. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20, 131–145.

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).