Once Upon A Sound: Literature-Based Phonological Activities (1998). By Linda Smith-Kiewel and Tracy Molenaar-Claeys. Thinking Publication, 424 Galloway St., Eau Claire, WI 54703. 375 pages, $42. Reviewed by Tamy Kulkarni, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

This treatment resource manual includes 29 lessons for remediating phonological skills. Each lesson focuses on a common children's book and integrates instructions, helpful hints, target-word lists, and target-word illustrations, as well as art, play, and music activities designed for treatment of a specific phonological pattern. The book also includes a concise explanation of the cycles approach, phonological cycles samples for three children, an example of a completed data remediation form, and a detailed written description of how to use this resource. A bibliography of the children's books is found in the appendices. The manual includes lessons targeting primary patterns-syllableness, prevocalic and postvocalic singletons, anterior/posterior contrasts, (including velars and alveolars), /s/ clusters, and liquids (prevocalic /l/ and /l/ clusters and word-initial /r/ and /r/ clusters). Secondary target patterns are also addressed for the remediation of prevocalic/postvocalic singleton strident /f/, palatal sibilants, and postvocalic /r/.

The manual is the outgrowth of the authors' experiences in developing a preschool program for serving children with highly unintelligible speech within the Minneapolis public school system. As a result, the authors explain in the introduction that the resource is aimed for use with children ages 3-8 who are highly unintelligible. Although the main purpose of the resource is remediation of phonological disorders, other goal areas that can be targeted include promoting the use of good vocal habits, modeling of fluency controls, improving phonological awareness, and developing receptive vocabulary.

This treatment manual is recommended for use by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and other education professionals who work collaboratively with SLPs. Furthermore, the authors recommend that an assessment of the child's phonological skills be conducted using a phonological analysis tool prior to beginning treatment.

The authors further explain that this is a literature-based approach program for use in a phonology group setting with activities to occur at four different centers: an opening center, a listening center, a practice center, and an art center. It is recommended that the classroom be organized into these centers. Therefore, the classroom lessons are organized into sections related to each center. For example, at the opening center, the target phoneme and the featured children's book are introduced to the group, along with activities for learning the related sound and letter association.

This manual is well written with easy to follow instructions for each lesson, and has well-illustrated target words and art activity pages. This resource can be used for many purposes. Goal areas that can be targeted include improving phonological awareness, early literacy skills, expressive language, and pragmatic skills, as well as increasing intelligibility by developing the use of age-appropriate phonological patterns. This program is based on the Hodson and Paden cycles approach, which is widely accepted and used within the communication disorders field. In addition, it is a literature-based approach to remediating phonological disorders, focusing on the use of children's books containing repetition, rhyme, and predictable patterns. Another feature of this manual is the inclusion of a family letter at the end of each lesson summarizing the objectives of the lesson, describing the target sound and the focus book, and providing practical and interesting home practice activities. This manual would be a valuable addition to the treatment resource library of communication professionals working with preschoolers.