Are you looking for Christmas books for speech therapy? Can you tell that writing book reviews is my jam? If you aren’t already following along on instagram, I have a speech room library page that I solely use for book reviews. I created blog posts for my favorite Fall Picture Books About Leaves and the Top 17 Thanksgiving Picture Books You Need To Know for Speech and Language Therapy. So let’s keep going and discuss the best Christmas books to use during speech therapy!
First and foremost, before you work with any students, make sure to interview their parents regarding the holidays that they celebrate. My school sends home a parent questionnaire and that allows us to know exactly what each family celebrates so that we can make sure each celebration is included.
At my school, we’ve always focused on celebrating the lights of different holidays. It’s a great way to include all holidays. You can read more about how I do this HERE? Another way that you can still have fun during the month of December and not have to worry about any religious holidays within your families is by doing a Gingerbread theme. Gingerbread is a great theme because you can use it with all students and there are SO many ways to have fun with gingerbread . Check out my favorite gingerbread toys, activities and teletherapy ideas!
I separated these Christmas books for speech therapy into two different categories-books to use for Early Intervention and books to use for Preschool/ Elementary age students. You can find most of these books on Amazon. Affiliate links are included.
Christmas Books for Early Intervention:
📊Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
✏️ Summary: In this Christmastime mystery, we follow the trail of Santa’s missing cookie. Where did it go? Did someone take it? In the end, readers will find out what happened to Santa’s cookie. Hint: it just might involve the family dog . . . and cat. Baby Beckett LOVES the big die cut center holes in this one! It’s an instant favorite for the baby in our house!
👄 Speech Sounds: K, S
🧠 Language: Where, Inferencing, Labeling Holiday Vocabulary, Labeling locations
📱 AAC: where, look, find, it
👑 Book Type: Picture Book, Board Book
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: EI, Preschool
📊Publisher: @NosyCrow
✏️ Summary: I am a big fan of these felt Flap Books from @NosyCrow because they are easy for the little hands to navigate and if your student has fine motor delays, they can still participate. Five beautifully illustrated spreads show a series of friendly Christmassy creatures hiding behind bright felt flaps. With gold foil on the cover and a mirror on the final page, this is a perfect book to share with very little ones.
👄 Speech Sounds: n/a
🧠 Language: where, labeling, book skills
📱 AAC: where, there, look, find
👑 Book Type: Flap Book, Board Book, Fine Motor Book
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: EI
📊Publisher: Nosy Crow
✏️ Summary: Large, colorful illustrations capture the holiday season in this “Can You Say It, Too?” flip the flap book. You’ll flip the flap to see what is hidden behind Santa sleigh, a snowman, a blue door and a Christmas tree. The toddler will not only discover the name of the hidden creature but also learn to make the same sound the creature makes.
👄 Speech Sounds: Environmental sounds, Animal noises
🧠 Language: WHO questions,
📱 AAC: look, find, who
👑 Book Type: Board Book, Lift the Flap, Picture Book
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: EI, Preschool
📊Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
✏️ Summary: It’s the night before Christmas and all through the farm, not a creature is stirring, not even a…duck?
Farmer Brown is busy decorating his home in preparation for Santa’s arrival on Christmas Eve! All seems calm in the barnyard, but Farmer Brown isn’t the only one who is getting ready…
Ho
Ho
OH NO!
Once again, Duck has gotten the whole barnyard STUCK in quite a predicament! Will anyone be able to un-stuck Duck and save Christmas?
👄 Speech Sounds: K, R, S blends, CV and VC (Ho, Ho, Uh-oh)
🧠 Language: simple retelling, labeling nouns and verbs
📱 AAC: down, no, bad, good, help
👑 Book Type: Picture Book, Repetitive Text
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: EI, Preschool, Early Elementary
📊Publisher: Houghton Milton Harcourt
✏️ Summary: It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Little Blue Truck is spreading cheer by delivering Christmas trees to his animal friends. Can you help count each green tree from one to five and back again? Don’t forget to save one for Blue! Beep! Beep! With the gentle rhythm and signature illustration style that made Little Blue Truck a household name, Blue’s new adventure is full of holiday warmth. Sturdy cardstock pages, a compact and child-friendly text, and flashing colored Christmas lights on the final page come together in a novelty gift book that’s sure to be the favorite treat of the season.
👄 Speech Sounds: CVC, P, B, K, R blends,
🧠 Language: Counting, lab
📱 AAC: give, that, here, more, less
👑 Book Type: Picture book, counting book, rhyming book
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: Preschool, EI
📊Publisher: Usborne
✏️ Summary: Very young children will delight in meeting the soft and furry reindeer in this colorful touchy-feely book. With simple, repetitive text on every page, children will enjoy joining in and exploring the textures, including a fuzzy neck, velvety ears and a hairy tail.
👄 Speech Sounds: R
🧠 Language: pronoun “my”, negation “not”, expanding MLU
📱 AAC: Not, My
👑 Book Type: Repetitive Text
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: EI, Preschool
Christmas Books for Preschool/ Elementary:
📊Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
✏️ Summary: How does Santa know how to match the exact right toy with the exact right kid every December? He knows because he’s the world’s number one kid and toy and gift expert, and he works long, long hours the whole year through, taking notes, compiling his research, thinking and testing and changing his mind. Then, at last, he gets it all figured out, and on Christmas morning, he makes magic happen.
👄 Speech Sounds: S, L blends
🧠 Language: Process/How to,
📱 AAC: pick, look, think, find, give
👑 Book Type: Picture Book
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: Preschool, Elementary
📊Publisher: Kane Miller Publishing
✏️ Summary: It’s nearly Christmas Eve when Santa gets a letter – it’s some very late Santa Post. The only problem is, Amy wants just one thing, and Santa can’t read what it is. He asks the elves, Mr. Polar Bear, and the Chief Reindeer for help, and they all do their best, sending back gifts and letters for readers to open, but… is this really what Amy wanted?
👄 Speech Sounds: S, R blends, 3 syllable words,
🧠 Language: Size words, predicting, perspective taking
📱 AAC: good, bad,
👑 Book Type: picture book
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: Preschool, Early Elementary
I just love this look at Christmas! We were given this set from the publisher. For therapy, I would paperclip the section specific to religious Christmas which is just one color in the book.
📊Publisher: Convergent
✏️ Summary: In his trademark style, Matthew Paul Turner celebrates the Christmas season, particularly the colors that infuse the holiday and all the memorable sensations and experiences—including a festive market, sledding, and nativity scene—connected to those bright hues. Matthew draws his readers into a whirling ribbon of the familiar reds and greens of Christmas, as well as other festive hues, including white, gold, blue, and brown.
👄 Speech Sounds: R blends, L blends, S blends
🧠 Language: Colors, Describing, Vocabulary
📱 AAC: look, happy
👑 Book Type: Diverse Characters, Picture Book
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: Preschool, Elementary
📊Publisher: Tundra
✏️ Summary: Santa’s parents think their little one is absolutely wonderful, even though he has a booming voice instead of a baby’s gurgle, loves to stand in front of the refrigerator, gives his birthday presents away, trains his hamsters to pull a matchbox sleigh … and has an unusual interest in chimneys. The adorably funny portrait of an oddball kid who fulfills his destiny – and two very proud parents.
👄 Speech Sounds: S, TH, S blends
🧠 Language: inferencing, compare/contrast, predicting
📱 AAC: little, one, same,
👑 Book Type: picture book
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: Early Elementary, Later Elementary
📊Publisher: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers
✏️ Summary: An enchanting Christmas story about a magical yet unlikely friendship between a little girl and a lost reindeer sure to be a Christmas classic lovingly told and illustrated with red foil highlights and interactive die cuts.
When a jingling sound wakes her from her sleep, a little girl’s dreams come true when she meets a lost reindeer in the forest. They set off on a magical adventure and it becomes a Christmas never to forget. Nicola Killen’s evocative illustrations are sure to enchant in this beautiful book with die cut pages, foil, and flashes of festive red.
👄 Speech Sounds: J, R, L
🧠 Language: figurative language, sequencing, comprehension
📱 AAC: see, look, on, go
👑 Book Type: picture book
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: Preschool, Elementary
📊Publisher: Walker Books
✏️ Summary: Part of the magic of the Christmas season stems from the traditions that families and friends take part in every year: hanging up stockings; putting lights in the windows; and, one of the most important of all, picking out and taking home the Christmas tree. With style and warmth, debut author Patricia Toht and Jarvis, the author-illustrator of Alan’s Big, Scary Teeth, evoke all the rituals of decorating the tree — digging out boxes jam-packed with ornaments and tree trimmings, stringing tinsel, and, at long last, turning on those twinkling lights. Joyously drawn and rhythmically written, this celebration of family, friends, and the holiday season is as merry as the tradition it depicts.
👄 Speech Sounds: K, R blends, S blends,
🧠 Language: descriptive adjectives (piney, sappy, scaly, spiky, short, squat, slim), Verbs, Sequencing
📱 AAC: on, off
👑 Book Type: picture book
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: Preschool, Elementary
📊Publisher: Candlewick Press
✏️ Summary: Dasher is an adventurous young reindeer with a wish in her heart. She spends her days with her family under the hot sun in a traveling circus, but she longs for a different life — one where there is snow beneath her hooves and the North Star above her head. One day, when the opportunity arises, Dasher seizes her destiny and takes off in pursuit of the life she wants to live. It’s not long before she meets a nice man in a red suit with a horse-drawn sleigh — a man named Santa. And soon, with the help of a powerful Christmas wish, nothing will be the same.
👄 Speech Sounds: R, S, SH, S Blends, TH
🧠 Language: Inferencing, predicting, WH questions
📱 AAC: help, him, find, up
👑 Book Type: picture book
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: Elementary
📊Publisher: Source Books
✏️ Summary: The Little Red Sleigh has one big dream―to one day become Santa’s big red sleigh! But all her life, she’s been told she’s too small, she’s too young, she can’t fly, and she certainly can’t meet Santa. Well, this Christmas, with the help of some friends, she’s determined to do the impossible. Little Red Sleigh is a heartwarming children’s Christmas book you’ll want to read again and again. Full of winter joy and Christmas magic, this Christmas book for kids will remind you that no dream is out of reach if you believe.
👄 Speech Sounds: S blends, S, R
🧠 Language: growth mindset, adjectives, sequencing, inferencing, vocabulary
📱 AAC: go, grow, away, help, in, down, find
👑 Book Type: picture book, growth mindset
🌳 Themes: Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: preschool, elementary
📊Publisher: Little, Brown, and Company
✏️ Summary: Whether it’s celebrating a holiday, sharing a meal, or learning new things, The Joyful Book inspires readers of all ages to spread the joy near and far, to loved ones and friends. With his renowned blend of warmth, humor, and heart, Todd Parr encourages young readers to look for all the ways that joy surrounds them.
👄 Speech Sounds: J,
🧠 Language: “is” sentences
📱 AAC: same, different, together, happy, that
👑 Book Type:
🌳 Themes: Holidays, Traditions, Christmas
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: Preschool, Early Elementary
📊Publisher: Candlewick Press
✏️ Summary: Red and Lulu make their nest in a particularly beautiful evergreen tree. It shades them in the hot months and keeps them cozy in the cold months, and once a year the people who live nearby string lights on their tree and sing a special song: O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree. But one day, something unthinkable happens, and Red and Lulu are separated. It will take a miracle for them to find each other again. Luckily, it’s just the season for miracles. . . . From Matt Tavares comes a heart-tugging story combining the cheer of Christmas, the magic of New York City, and the real meaning of the holiday season: how important it is to be surrounded by love.
👄 Speech Sounds: L, R, R blends,
🧠 Language: Sequencing, inferencing, perspective taking, describing,
📱 AAC: Go, Together.
👑 Book Type: Fiction, Picture Book
🌳 Themes: Christmas, Traditions
👦🏽 👧🏻 Ages: Preschool, Elementary, Big Kids
I would love to know -What are your favorite Christmas books for speech therapy?!
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