Story Friends at-a-glance
×
CURRICULUM NAME
Story Friends: An Early Literacy Intervention for Improving Oral Language
PURPOSE
Improves children's oral language skills, specifically vocabulary and comprehension, through interactive listening sessions
AGE RANGE
4–6 years
COMPLETED BY
Early childhood educators, special educators, literacy specialists, literacy coaches, speech-language pathologists, paraprofessionals, teacher aides, classroom volunteers
TIME COMMITMENT
Each listening session takes approximately 10–15 minutes. Children have 3 sessions a week for 26 weeks, listening to the same storybook/narration 3 times.
ABOUT
Through 26 interactive storybooks about funny, relatable animals, Story Friends effectively boosts the early language skills that predict success in reading. The program encourages active response: each storybook provides up to 20 opportunities for interaction, as children answer vocabulary prompts and comprehension questions. Not only does Story Friends introduce children to challenging new words—from enormous to exhausted—it also helps kids master key concept words like high, low, many, and few, which will help them learn new academic content faster and easier. And through the lessons woven into the animals vibrantly illustrated stories, children strengthen other important skills, such as solving problems, empathizing, working together, and making friends with others who are different.
Description
Ideal for use in a wide variety of early childhood education settings, this convenient kit contains the materials you need to implement the Story Friends™ early language and literacy intervention with a small group.
Fun, engaging, and effective, Story Friends is a language intervention program for 4- to 6-year-old children at risk for reading difficulties. Through 26 interactive animal-themed storybooks and lively, engaging audio recordings, Story Friends effectively improves oral language and vocabulary development—two of the most important predictors of later reading success. With colorful illustrations, rhyming text, interactive story components, and appealing narration from Wanda the Word Wolf, children strengthen other important skills, such as solving problems, empathizing, working together, and making friends with others who are different. And because Story Friends is a natural fit with any existing classroom schedule or curriculum, it's easier than ever to deliver interventions when they matter most and get all young children ready to read and succeed.
Packed in a sturdy box with a handle for easy carrying, this kit contains:
- 1 Teacher Guide with complete guidance on implementing the program
- 3 complete sets of 26 full-color, animal-themed storybooks for conducting Story Friends in small groups (78 total storybooks)
- 1 USB with the audio tracks that accompany each storybook (252 minutes of instruction)
- 1 set of 18 shrink-wrapped picture cards for assessing childrens acquisition of words
*Note: If you're an SLP or reading specialist and don't need the extra sets of storybooks for small-group intervention, please purchase the Story Friends Specialist's Kit.
Stay on track for implementation success with the professional development modules for Story Friends.
Watch a webinar to get an inside look
All Story Friends Products
All products in the Multitiered Interventions for Language & Literacy in Early Childhood (MILLIE) suite
Reviews
Review by: Nickola Wolf Nelson, Professor emerita, Western Michigan University; Editor-in-Chief, Topics in Language Disorders
"Great authors, solid scholarship. Story Friends is a wonderful evidence-based resource for helping young children learn new concepts through literacy while learning how to use literacy to learn!"
Review by: Timothy Shanahan, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois at Chicago
"There are two intersected paths one must travel to prevent reading disability: one to the alphabetic code and the other to language learning. Story Friends will help children along the language-learning path—charmingly, in a way both consistent with research and appealing to young children."
Review by: Andrea DeBruin-Parecki, Principal Research Project Manager, Educational Testing Service Early Childhood Research and Assessment Center
"Story Friends provides individual instruction in key areas of early literacy that impact future reading comprehension. Using Story Friends can assist young children, particularly those identified as needing supplementary help, develop a broader vocabulary and acquire tools to help them gain further understandings."