Becoming Readers with Wordless Books

• In Event: Becoming a Reader: Centering Students' Experiences for Meaningful Literacy Research and Just Repair

Abstract

Wordless books are picture books with little to no words, that have detailed illustrations for children to interpret and articulate stories dynamically. While wordless books are not new, with classics like “Good Dog, Carl” (Day, 1985) published in the 1980s, how wordless books are part of instructional practices and can support learners’ identities as readers are inadequately documented or understood. This paper asks: how can wordless books support children’s identities as readers and storytellers?

Research on early childhood literacy has shown picture books are significant for providing young children with equal experiences in words and pictures (Dooley, et al., 2013). Therefore, we build on scholars who define literacy as more than mastering reading and writing techniques and memorizing words (Alvermann, 2001) by arguing that visual literacy is equally important (Bang, 2000; Nikolajeva, 2003). Literacy is social and cultural (Dehghani et al., 2013; Razfar & Gutierrez, 2003), thus, if we want to empower young children to connect with the world, it is important to consider the multiple forms of literacy and meaning-making that make up our world (Freire, 2001; Perry, 2012). Our paper examines how wordless books, a genre of literature with almost no words, can support children’s identities as developing readers and storytellers.

Findings come from a larger participatory research project (one university researcher and two Kindergarten teachers) examining how play and wordless books can support children’s identities as storytellers. We introduced wordless books to three kindergarten classrooms (n=68), making wordless books a part of regular “buddy reading” practice. After five months of reading wordless books with their peers, we audio-recorded and transcribed classroom conversations on how children felt when reading wordless books. We used qualitative methods by thematically analyzing transcripts of these classroom conversations to identify the themes presented in this paper.

Our analysis revealed three themes, which can be found in Table 1. First, we found that children felt empowered as readers by having agency in storytelling. For example, they felt they could use their own words instead of the words given to them by the authors. We also found that children recognized their experiences reading wordless books as a social activity. Several commented on how they enjoyed reading or listening to others (or “buddies”) come up with different words while reading. Lastly, we found that children told stories from the same wordless book in various ways. Due to the lack of words, children could read the same book without telling the same story.

“To belong is to be recognized as a full participant in the practices that shape knowledge, identities, and action” (Quintero, 2009, p.2). Our findings revealed that children felt wordless books gave them a sense of agency and belonging as valuable readers in their classroom. Children could bring themselves, their ideas, and their modes of sensemaking into storytelling and reading. Therefore, our paper not only illustrates the social process of literacy but furthers the importance of images and pictures as an empowering form of literacy for children.

Authors

• Christine Lee, University of California - Los Angeles

• Arlen Nava, University of California - Los Angeles

• Kelly Erin Peters, University of California - Los Angeles