Tell Me a Story: Favorite Books to Promote Sequential Storytelling Skills

oral narrative skills, storytelling skills, literacy, oral language

Favorite Books to Promote Storytelling Skills

Narratives are stories. Telling stories is an essential life skill. There are many children, adolescents, and adults who struggle to tell a story. Those with poor narrative abilities have an increased risk for later reading problems.

The following books are some of my favorites to use during my speech therapy sessions with my preschoolers and young school aged children (Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd graders). With their simple, sequential, and engaging story lines they are great for targeting early narrative language skills.

For tips on how to improve your child’s narrative abilities, please read Tell Me a Story: How to Improve Your Preschooler’s Storytelling. (The suggestions in this post are applicable to school aged children as well.)

Amazon affiliate links have been included.

The Three Little Pigs

Goldilocks and the Three Bears


The Very Hungry Caterpillar


Caps for Sale


The Gingerbread Man


If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

If You Give a Pig a Pancake and If You Give a Moose a Muffin are also good.

The Mitten


We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, the sound book version of this story and highly recommend it!

There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a…

There are SO many books in this series. Can choose one based on the current season or holiday.

The Napping House

For a fun book companion to target early literacy and language skills, please click here.

Bear Snores on… Series

This author and illustrator duo are also pretty prolific and there are several in this series as well.

Froggy Gets Dressed

What are some of your favorite books to promote sequential storytelling?


Kimberly Scanlon, M.A. CCC-SLP is a speech language pathologist, an author and a mother. As the owner of Scanlon Speech Therapy, LLC, a unique boutique practice in Bergen County, Kimberly embraces individuality and treats the whole person. Her goal is to spread compassion, hope, and some speech, language and literacy tips one moment, one person at a time. Her first book, My Toddler Talks: Strategies and Activities to Promote Your Child’s Language Development and her second book, Learning to Read is a Ball are available for purchase online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

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