Wordless Picture Books

Mar 29

What is a Wordless Picture Book?

I think it’s pretty safe to say that I am obsessed with wordless picture books. Now that might be a weird thing to hear from someone who teaches reading and spelling to kids but hear me out. Wordless picture books are the most versatile yet misunderstood and underutilized genre in kid lit. The illustrations move the storyline forward and make the books accessible to any child in any language. Visual literacy is the ability to read, write and create visual images. Think about a time you visited an art gallery or a museum - did you go directly to the write up about the sculpture or the painting? Most likely you examined the artwork and began to notice the way you felt about the piece, how the colours or shapes connected, you may have wondered what medium the artist used or what message they are trying to convey. Wordless picture books are just like that, they are pieces of art that we can use to support many different language and literacy goals.

The very first time I saw a wordless picture book was about 15 years ago. Each year our school held an event called Literacy Night where every family in the school was invited for an evening of activities to celebrate our love of reading. We set up different stations in each classroom and families would go from room to room and complete different literacy activities. We also had door prizes, a snack and everyone went home with a free book. I was in charge of requesting donations for books to share with families and as the books were received, I would make sure that each class had enough books to hand out to each child that attended. As I was going through the books one day, I came across a book called, “Chicken and Cat” by Sara Varon. When I flipped through the pages I was kinda shocked to see not a single word. I snorted and quickly hid the book on my desk, no one was going to receive THAT book, how would THAT book celebrate reading if there was NO TEXT? Our Literacy Night went off without a hitch and a few days later I was cleaning off my desk and there it was again - the book without words!

I flipped through the pages again and thought to myself, “Why would anyone write a book without words?” “How is that even entertaining to the reader?” “How would you even READ a book without words?”

I took the book home and looked through it a few more times that week and then it hit me. Oral language precedes written language and this would be the perfect book to promote oral storytelling. As I practiced reading the story to myself, I taught myself how to read a wordless picture book. I began to research information about this strange new genre and there really wasn’t a lot of info so I set out to discover how I could incorporate this kind of a book into my reading support sessions.

First I started to use them as I Spy books. While working with Kindergarten and Grade 1 students with moderate and severe speech and language concerns, I realized that I could avoid using boring old flashcards and actually include story elements while targeting speech sounds. I could use Chicken and Cat to target the /k/ sound in words throughout the story - look, cat, case, walk, can, car, honk, bike… - every time we turned a page we could practice that sound within the context of the story, starting with a target word, then moving to phrase level and sentence level, and finally into telling the whole story. As we moved through the story, I realized we were predicting, inferencing, summarizing, questioning, clarifying, analyzing, visualizing, evaluating - so many specific comprehension skills. This was a game-changer, kids were really engaged and I could target so many goals with just one resource - the wordless picture book WAS the resource. I didn’t have to print, cut or laminate anything!

Top 5 Benefits for Using Wordless Picture Books

Over the past decade, I have collected close to 300 wordless picture books and created tons of resources and lesson ideas to use with this genre. Today I’d like to share with you a free guide that I created about the 5 Top Benefits for Using Wordless Picture Books.

In this free resource, I go through all of the common questions that I have received over the years -

What are wordless picture books?
Who would use a picture book without words?
When would I use a wordless picture book?
How do I use them?
Why are they useful?
Where do I find them?
How can I access them for virtual learning?

You can grab the free download by clicking the button below.

Send me the Guide

Let’s chat about the top 5 benefits-

Develop social and emotional skills - children look for clues to understand the world around them all the time, using a wordless picture book encourages curiosity and connection to themselves and to others. Learning to read facial features and body language is important for social-emotional development
Target literacy concepts - Kids love playing “I Spy” and wordless picture books are perfect to target many literacy goals such as themed vocabulary and phonological awareness skills. For example: “I spy something that starts with the sound /m/…” “I spy something that rhymes with…”
Make predictions and inferences - a prediction is making an educated guess about what will happen next (an event) and making an inference is taking information and “reading between the lines.” What does that exactly mean though? Children need to practice the skill of answering questions like “why do you think…” or “how come they…” This type of information is hidden in the story and requires the reader to do some digging into the text or in a wordless picture book, into the images on the page such as facial expressions, body language, or paying attention to actions and reactions of the characters
Expand oral language skills - wordless picture books encourage children to become good storytellers by using interesting and descriptive vocabulary that follows a structured story that has already been ‘written’. Yes, wordless picture books have a story written through the images, much like a storyboard. Children can practice simple to complex story structures using a wordless picture book.
Encourage and instruct writers - from phonemes to full narratives, wordless picture books provide a structured story that still allows the writer to be original, creative, and use their imagination - there are multiple points of entry to telling the story in a wordless picture book. Use the storyline to provide the background for developing the author’s craft.

Wordless Picture Book 4-Step Framework

Whether you are a parent, caregiver, educator, or speech and language pathologist, wordless picture books are incredibly versatile and because of misinformation or lack of knowledge, these books have been ignored for years. I hope to change that because I have seen first-hand the incredible way they have supported oral language, vocabulary, and writing skills. I created a 4-step framework that I use in my Wordless Wonders Webinar to teach how to use wordless picture books with kids. Step 1 is to demystify this genre and provide an overview of the many ways we can use wordless picture books to target a plethora of language and literacy goals. Step 2, I teach how we can identify what goals we can target within a book and how we explore and research those concepts. In Step 3, we look at the development phase where we go from our brain dump of ideas to creating a timeline of using the book in our weekly lessons. Finally, in step 4 we discover how to execute and evaluate our process and progress. If you are interested in learning more about this workshop, you can send an email to myliteracyspace@gmail.com and you can also find more information on my website www.myliteracyspace.com

Have I convinced you to try a wordless picture book yet? If you want to find some of my favourite titles, I invite you to join me on Instagram, my handle is @myliteracyspace Each week I share my favourite wordless picture books for #wordlesswednesday and I give different extension ideas to engage your readers. So, here’s your homework- head to your favourite library or independent bookstore and find a wordless picture book, then download my free guide in the show notes and have fun creating your story.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

The Top 5 Benefits for Using Wordless Picture Books

Favourite 3 WPBs (See Below)