Issue 14: Without Words: Immerse Your Child Into the World of a Wordless Picture Book's Wondrous Artistic Adventures | Joanna Migo

Wordless picture books are books that tell a story without words. Through innovative and creative format display, a wordless picture book author invites the reader to utilize their imagination and wonder to infer the events unfolding with each turn of the page. There exists a creative variety of art expressions among these types of books. Some authors opt for black-and-white sketches, some for mixed media, and others for realistic art. Each unique expression of art contributes significantly to the story's overall tone, mood, and meaning, offering valuable opportunities for deep dialogues surrounding the illustrator's choice of artistic display to be discussed and appreciated.

Reading comprehension is a process that is both complex and involves various components with a connection to the reader, their prior knowledge, and interaction with the text. Reading research, more than forty years worth, suggests that students experience reading success when teachers explicitly teach the metacognitive skills and strategies to use while reading. These strategies assist in uncovering meaning, subsequently enabling students to develop a deeper understanding of a story. A strategy is a specific action plan explicitly taught to students to accomplish a particular goal. (Paris, Lipson, & Wixson, 1983). An example of a specific strategy for reading is questioning. There are three points at which a teacher can facilitate meaningful questions, including posing questions before, during, and after reading. This allows students to think more deeply about their reading, ultimately engaging in quality discussions. Wordless picture books lend exceptionally well to the comprehension strategy of questioning and other reading strategies, including predicting, inferring, visualizing, and summarizing. With wordless picture books, reading is "seeing," and many incredible opportunities arise to engage students in this metacognitive process.

With wordless picture books, reading is "seeing," and many incredible opportunities arise to engage students in this metacognitive process.

So how exactly do you read and engage with a wordless picture book? Here are some helpful tips to assist you with your visual storytelling adventure:

1. Read the title and examine the front and back cover of the book. Invite your children to make predictions about what the story will be about. Encourage dialogue about the art and illustrations. Does the artist use color, collage, black and white sketches, or realistic, eye-popping images? Ask students what will be learned.
2. Set a purpose for reading. Are you reading to practice inferring, questioning, making connections, or summarizing? Will you be practising all of these strategies at once? Are you reading to simply engage and intrigue your students with a new book concept or format? Communicate your purpose for reading the wordless picture book with your student or child.
3. Discuss the mood and tone of the book as you picture walk through each page. Think and discuss how the artist's expression contributes to the overall story. Allow your children to let their minds wander and observe each frame on the page. This will encourage them to begin building a story in their head. Move through each story page in this fashion, continuously wondering and observing. There is no right or wrong answer; each child's unique and personal interpretation must be uncovered.
4. Now, invite your child to tell the story in their own words using descriptive language and detail. Using the picture frames as a guide allows them to express their story with prosody and dialogue. This is an excellent occasion for children to express their true creativity, one-of-a-kind perspective, and insight into what they "see" as the story. Good readers can identify information that is important in the text, including retelling in sequence and identifying the main character, setting, problem, and solution. These are essential story elements for helping children comprehend (Hougen & Smartt, 2020).
5. Ask questions during reading. Invite the students to make connections to prior knowledge, revise predictions, and overall assist in monitoring their understanding of the visual images, making adjustments while reading the story.
6. At the end of the story, foster a dialogue about the story's events. Children can summarize the story in their own words in sequence. You, as a facilitator, can ask explicit and inferential comprehension questions about the narrative. Refer to a specific page or drawing that can assist in answering.
7. Provide children with the leisure to reflect and discuss their favorite illustration or event of the story. Ask them questions about the theme or message the author was trying to convey and what part of the story resonated with them. Encourage your child to discover other books by the same author or different wordless picture book authors for an excellent compare-and-contrast experience. (Baker & Brown, 1984; Pressley, 2001).

The thoughtful illustrations in wordless picture books evoke rich participation for dialogue, vocabulary discovery, and retelling in sequence.

Children of all ages can benefit from reading wordless picture books. Many books offer interesting stories depicting the love between a child and an animal, futuristic explorations, playful and uber-imaginative plots, social-emotional themes, and more! As an educator, I have found that children struggling with reading may be especially intrigued by wordless picture books. These specific books allow the reader to enjoy the plot while not having to place all their attention and focus on the laborious decoding of the words. Wordless picture books also serve students seeking to develop their speech and language skills. The thoughtful illustrations evoke rich participation for dialogue, vocabulary discovery, and retelling in sequence.

The most significant benefit of reading wordless picture books is the fun and engaging learning extensions inspired by these visual stories. Specifically, I love offering writing opportunities for children. Encourage children to write dialogue bubbles or sentences to accompany each page's illustrations using sticky notes. If you are an educator of a group of students, assigning each child to write or type their version of the story is a fun idea, and then giving them the spotlight to share story versions in an exciting and celebratory exchange!

Each wordless picture book you present to your children can be an excellent mentor text. A mentor text is a book that can be used as a reference or example in replicating one's rendition of its format. Extending the opportunity for children to create their own wordless picture book will be a memorable experience.

The most significant benefit of reading wordless picture books is the fun and engaging learning extensions inspired by these visual stories.

Consider researching various authors, artists, and art techniques. Each child can determine their book's look, feel, and story frame format. Children can choose their art materials, and utilizing a blank book allows them to fill its pages with their picture frames. Before drawing, discuss how they can create a story plot that includes the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. This is an excellent learning extension to discuss these essential story elements and the sequencing of events. Inform your child to map out and draw their story as they see it come to life, adding color, paint, or mixed media materials to their liking. Creating a coordinating cover, title, cover page, and an about the author page is highly encouraged. Providing time to share their new stories and creating a classroom and home library of wordless picture books offers endless fun, storytelling, and language development!

The next time you visit the library or wander into the local bookstore, discover the wordless picture book selections and uncover a new magical way of reading a story. Immerse your child into the world of a wordless picture book's wondrous artistic adventure; they may want to stay on its pages, as they will be taken on an experience into the most imaginative narrative travels that will no doubt feed serious wanderlust and creativity!

• Journey by Aaron Becker
• Return by Aaron Becker
• Quest by Aaron Becker
• Fossil by Bill Thomson
• Chalk by Bill Thomson
• Field Trip to the Moon by John Hare
• Stormy by Guojing
• Forever Home by Henry Cole
• The Snowman by Raymond Briggs
• Sector by David Wiesner
• Free Fall by David Wiesner
• Found by Jeff Newman
• Draw the Line by Kathryn
• Flashlight by Lizi Boyd
• Flood by Alvaro F. Villa

• Baker, L., & Brown, A.L (1984). Metacognitive skills and reading. In Pd.D. Pearson, R. Barr, M.L. Kamil & P. Mosenthal (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (pp.353-394).White Plains, NY: Longman.
• Paris, S. G., Lipson, M.Y., & Wixon, K.K. (1983). Becoming a strategic reader. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 8(3), 293-316.
• Smartt, S.M., & Houghen, M.C (2020). Literacy Instruction & Assessment Pre-K-6 (pp. 230-231, pp.240-253) Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Joanna is an academic language therapist and a certified K-12th-grade reading specialist. Joanna specializes in BUILD: A K-1st Grade Early Reading Intervention, Pre-Flight dyslexia therapy for students six years and younger, and Take Flight: A Comprehensive Intervention for Students with Dyslexia for students seven years and older. Joanna offers dyslexia therapy and literacy support services at her private practice, Rainbows Reading, located in Wheaton, Illinois.

In Joanna's spare time, she volunteers with the Joshua Tree Community, a terrific local organization assisting disabled adults in Geneva, Illinois. She also serves as a book reviewer for Children's Literature (childrenslit.com), an independent online directory with an extensive collection of children's and YA book reviews. You can find her recommendations and reviews on her social media and her parent and teacher resource blog on her website.