Above and Below

Well, the title of this book is a clear giveaway about what concepts can be focused on when reading it!

But, that’s not all! This is a split-page book, so you are able to see things above and below (the surface of the water), outside and inside (a cave), and on top of and under (the ground).

My almost three-year-old loves animals and so this book keeps his attention well. I don’t read all of the words in it, but I choose a few things on each page to talk about. Typically, I will let him lead by pointing to different animals or by him telling me what he is seeing. This book is also very appropriate for my ten-year-old because of the interesting facts and advanced vocabulary. It is a win-win when I find books that extend across multiple age groups!

Here are some speech and language tips as you read through this book!

• As you can see in the above picture, there are pictures of different animals and objects on the left side with a brief description, and then those animals and objects are in the scene on the right side. Work on matching with your child! Depending on the way you have your child find the match can work on a bunch of different receptive language goals.
  • Where is the dolphin? (answering wh- questions)
  • Find the same turtle. (following simple directives)
  • Do you see the crab? (answering y/n questions)
• You can work on expanding expressive language through labeling different animals/objects (single word level) and practicing longer utterances with carrier phrases.
  • Look at the _____.
  • I see a _____.
  • I found a _____.
  • It is a _____.
• Challenge the recall of an older child while also working on answering questions. How many animals/objects do they remember from the rain forest scene? Which habitat was the otter in? Can they name an animal that lives in an underground burrow?
  • You can have them challenge you as well (if you dare!). This will help them work on formulating questions and I bet you will learn some new facts as well!
• You can create some great convergent and divergent naming tasks
  • Convergent example: Name an animal that lives in the ocean, has five legs, and can regrow limbs.
  • Divergent example: Name five animals that live in the savannah.

There are eight different habitats in this book, and I have created a printable for six of them focusing on the concepts above and below. Below is an example of two of the pages; I invite you to check out the entire packet on my Teachers Pay Teachers page where both colored and black and white printables are available.

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If you are interested in purchasing this book for your home or therapy library, you can buy it here. Usborne Books & More has some additional books – What’s Above? and What’s Below? that also work on these concepts.

I would highly recommend Above and Below. There are so many language goals that can be targeted through this book, and it is appropriate for a wide age-range!