Using wordless picture books in schools and libraries. Ideas for using wordless picture books in reading, writing and speaking activities

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1 CfE eves Eary to Fourth (Ages 3-16) Using wordess picture books in schoos and ibraries Ideas for using wordess picture books in reading, writing and speaking activities Resource created by Scottish Book Trust

2 About this resource This resource has severa aims: To introduce teachers and ibrarians to wordess picture books To expain more about the skis needed to read a wordess picture book To show how wordess picture books can benefit pupis of a wide range of ages and abiities Wordess picture books are highy visuay stimuating and are gaining popuarity amongst teachers, ibrarians and parents as a means of deveoping a ove of reading and comprehension skis. We hope this resource shows you that there is both a wide range of wordess picture books and an equay wide range of potentia appications in a schoo setting. About wordess picture books Wordess (or neary wordess) picture books are most hepfuy defined as books where the visua image carries the weight of the meaning 1. Some of them do contain sma amounts of text, but the pictures provide the main means of understanding the pot, characters, setting and atmosphere of the book. Wordess picture books, therefore, can pace very different demands on their reader than books that rey on text as the primary way of conveying meaning. The foowing are some important things to know about wordess picture books. They invite a ot of reader participation Because of the ack of text, there is a ot of information eft for the reader to work out! For exampe, a reader can t just read text to work out how a character is feeing, what their personaity is ike, and the motivations for their actions: a of this must be deduced from the pictures. Sometimes, the pot points of wordess picture books can be quite ambiguous, and readers can be eft without a definitive answer as to what exacty has happened. They can be chaenging Pupis are generay accustomed to being given ots of information through the text of a book. It takes time for them to get used to the idea that they are expected to contribute ots of their own ideas in order to construct meaning from a book. It can aso be difficut for them to accept the 1 Arizpe, E. (2013) Meaningmaking from wordess (or neary wordess) picturebooks: what educationa research expects and what readers have to say. Cambridge Journa of Education, 43 (2). ISSN X, p.5 2

3 ambiguity in some wordess picture books at first. However, once they understand these aspects, they often respond very enthusiasticay. Equay, they can be incusive Because the barrier of text is removed, wordess picture books can be accessed by pupis who strugge to decode. Often, wordess picture books expore compex characters and themes. The ack of text invites pupis to use the pictures to make sense of these characters and themes. Therefore, these books can provide an opportunity for you to assess the comprehension skis of pupis who strugge with decoding. They can motivate strugging readers When pupis finish a task successfuy, such as reading a compete book, this constitutes a mastery experience. The more of these mastery experiences a chid has, the greater their perception wi be of themseves as a competent reader. They are then much more ikey to tacke further reading experiences, with increasing amounts of chaenge. Wordess picture books provide a great opportunity for a strugging to reader to finish a book and thus achieve a mastery experience. This can hep them to see reading more positivey, and encourage them to try more books. For more information about how mastery experiences can motivate earners, read Abert Bandura, Sef-efficacy: The Exercise of Contro (Worth Pubishers, 1997). They can hep deveop comprehension skis Wordess picture books deveop a chid s abiity to infer information about character, setting and pot, because so much is eft to the reader to figure out. Thus, they hep deveop chidren s understanding of how stories work. They demand cose reading, as readers must remember what they saw on previous pages and ink it with visua information in upcoming pages. Often this can be chaenging, particuary in the case of visuay rich and compex books ike The Arriva by Shaun Tan. Once your pupis have had some experience reading wordess picture books, there are great opportunities to discuss the roe of words and pictures when they next read a book that contains both of these media particuary comics, manga and graphic noves. For exampe, do the words and pictures convey the same information? Why do you think the book s creators have chosen to convey certain information via words and certain information via images? They can inspire both discussion and writing Because wordess picture books eicit so much reader participation, pupis are given ots of opportunities to discuss their inferences and impressions of the book. Therefore, wordess picture books are a great too for anguage deveopment, particuary in pupis with Engish as an additiona cross-curricuar 3

4 anguage, as they verbaise their understanding of the books. Wordess picture books can aso inspire creative writing, as pupis can adapt the book into a fomat that uses text: for instance, a script or short story. They can hep chidren find out about other cutures Due to the ack of text, there is no anguage barrier in wordess picture books. Thus, they can offer an uninhibited view into another cuture. See for exampe Jeannie Baker s book Mirror, which compares the ives of two boys, one from Morocco and one from Sydney. Some tips for starting out Give chidren penty of time to read the book Penty of re-readings are encouraged. Chidren can take a whie to get used to the experience of a wordess book. Aow them to expore the book on their own, or share the book with them, aowing them to point out detais and ask questions. Don t ask chidren to try and re-te the story too soon Athough re-teing is a fun and beneficia activity, wordess books pace a ot of demands on a chid s abiity to sequence a story in their minds. Asking chidren to re-te the story too soon can ead them to become too preoccupied with the chaenge of re-teing and not focused enough on cosey reading the book. This can ead to them missing vita visua cues, resuting in a re-teing which doesn t reay refect the book s narrative. 2 Aow them to simpy expore the characters, settings and objects before you chaenge them to verbaise the sequence of events in the story. 2 Arizpe, E. (2013) Meaningmaking from wordess (or neary wordess) picturebooks: what educationa research expects and what readers have to say. Cambridge Journa of Education, 43 (2). ISSN X, pp

5 Genera activities reading I see do you see? For basic understanding, especiay with ess confident pupis, this is a good way to start. Go through the book and point out a few detais, saying (for exampe), I see a bird. Do you see a bird? If pupis fee more confident during the exercise, they can take over the I see part of the sentence. Annotate with sticky notes As they read through the book, you can ask pupis to use sticky notes to annotate it. You can ask them to record different amounts of types of information on their notes, depending on what you want them to investigate: Pupis can make notes saying who the main characters on each page are, where they are and what they are doing They can make notes with any questions they have about what is happening on each page They can make notes about what characters are thinking and feeing, or what they might be saying to each other. Sequence the pages Copy the pages of the book and give one page to each pupi or group of pupis. Ask them to make notes about what is going on in the page, perhaps using sticky notes as above. Ask them to come together and try and sort the pages into a ogica order. This can aso hep with the next activity. Cause and effect Wordess picture books chaenge pupis to remember visua information from previous pages and ink it with new information in the page they re currenty reading. Ask them to go through the book and identify character actions, then ask them to identify the effects of these actions ater in the book. Character anaysis Ask pupis to do character anaysis activities, exporing characters personaities and giving evidence from the text. This can be a fun and interesting chaenge when there are no words to use as evidence. Come up with a tite Show your pupis the story without showing them the tite of the book. Afterwards, ask them to come up with a tite. They can base their decisions on different things: what they think the main idea of the book was, which character they fet was the most pivota, or whether the setting was particuary important. cross-curricuar 5

6 Speaking activities Re-teing As previousy mentioned, give pupis penty of time to get acquainted with the book before asking them to attempt to re-te the story. Re-teing is a great way for pupis to deveop their use of connectives indicating sequence ( First, next, then, etc) as they recount the event of the story. Pupis wi probaby need to do some writing to scaffod their attempts to re-te the story. One way to do this is to design a story map, where pupis draw a ine indicating the journey of the story and annotate it with words or pictures representing key events. You can see ots of exampe story maps on Pinterest and Googe Images they can vary in size and compexity. Another way to scaffod re-teing is to do an activity caed story stepping. This is where pupis identify key events in the story, and then come up with actions to hep them remember and re-te these events. You can see this in action in this video from a schoo: Pupis can stand in the one spot as they re-te the story and perform actions; aternativey, they can create a map on the foor and step to different ocations for each key event. Discuss the themes of the book Many wordess picture books dea with chaenging themes and hep pupis think about issues ike toerance and confict. See the suggested discussion topics for Shaun Tan s The Arriva at the end of this resource for a good exampe. Story buiding If your pupis do not have forma writing skis, you can use story buiding to hep them deveop both the abiity to have a discussion and to craft a narrative. Story buiding requires a fairy sma group of pupis (between 6-10) and at east one adut to provide stimui and use pupis ideas to move the story forward. Provide some kind of stimui to pupis as a way to start the story off. This coud be a character from one of the pages of a wordess picture book. Ask pupis who this character coud be, where they are, and what they might be doing today. Once you have taken everyone s ideas, try to identify the idea the group is happiest with, and move on to ask pupis to suggest a surprising or unusua thing that coud happen to the character, ideay something that presents them with a probem, or gives them something to do. For instance, do they ose something (or find something)? Is there something they want that they can t have? cross-curricuar 6

7 Keep taking suggestions from pupis as to what happens next and how the character fees at each stage of the way you can aso ask them to describe what settings ook and fee ike aong the way. Keep going unti you arrive at an ending that everyone is happy with! You can find out more about story buiding in The Litte Book of Storybuiding by Care Lewis and Victoria Miward: Genera activities writing Write a character s diaogue or interna monoogue This can be an idea foow up activity to the annotation exercise where pupis write down what a character might be thinking or feeing. Encourage them to go into detai, exporing the reasons why a character might be thinking or feeing the way they are. Write a short story version of the book Wordess picture books are an idea way to demonstrate the concept of showing, not teing to pupis, and thus can provide a good stimuus for creative writing. Write from different points of view Whichever medium your pupis write in, they can choose to write from the points of view of different characters in the text. With some books, there wi be great opportunities to expore how different characters viewed each other s actions, and whether they might view the same incidents differenty. Produce a sient fim version of the book Wordess picture books empoy many of the same techniques as fims do: use of framing, mise-en-scene, and coour and ighting to convey mood and atmosphere. Oder pupis can make a fim version of the book, enhancing it with sound. Produce a traier for a wordess picture book A book traier foows the same principes as a movie traier: it is a short fim which provides a teaser of a book s content, enticing potentia readers. As mentioned above, wordess picture books can actuay provide a good teaching too to demonstrate cinematic techniques, and pupis can think about how they might convey snippets of character, pot and setting using these techniques. You can find great for creating book traiers on the Scottish Book Trust website here: cross-curricuar 7

8 Activities for The Arriva by Shaun Tan The Arriva is a great exampe of a wordess picture book that provides: A chaenge to pupis comprehension through compex, detaied iustrations Topica and compex themes, idea for deveoping higher order thinking skis through discussion A chance to buid empathy with others Interesting artwork to expore and discuss Summary of the book The Arriva tes the story of a man who is forced to eave his famiy behind in search of better prospects in a foreign and. He arrives in an overwheming and bewidering country and must make sense of new surroundings, as we as finding a home and a job. As he attempts to make his way, he is heped by a cast of characters, each of whom has a story of their own to te. Discussing the book with pupis Keep your initia discussions focused on pointing out detais in the text. Ask pupis to say who the main character is, what he is trying to do in the initia phases of the story, and what the settings are ike. Discussion questions might incude the foowing: Why do you think the iustrator drew the book the way he did? How woud you fee if you had to eave home and ive in another country? What woud you take with you and why? How do you think you coud hep a person who has come to ive in your country to fee more at home? cross-curricuar 8

9 Some great wordess picture books The Arriva by Shaun Tan The Red Tree by Shaun Tan Fotsam by David Weisner (aso Mr Wuffes!) Journey by Aaron Becker (part 1 of a 3 part series incuding Quest and Return) Red Sedge by Lita Judge The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney Cown by Quentin Bake The Wave by Suzy Lee (aso Mirror and Shadow) The Red Book by Barbara Lehman Mirror by Jeanie Baker Zoom by Istvan Banyai The Ony Chid by Guojing Sidewak Fowers by Jonarno Lawson A Ba for Daisy by Chris Rashka Pubished in other anguages: Mi eón (My ion) by Mandana Sadat I Bárbaro (The Barbarian) by Renato Morriconi cross-curricuar 9