Wordless Picture Books Tell Many Stories

Books without words? This sounds like a strange beast, and yet, the skill of reading pictures in a book is just one of the important steps on the track to literacy. More importantly, each child that “reads” the pictures tells a new story and finds a twist on the main events that creates a unique telling. Pictures are a universal language that everyone, even young children, can read.

Sometime around the age of three, children typically understand how a book works, which is top and bottom of the page, and the directions that pages turn, etc. At this point, children often pretend to read a book, another sign that literacy is on track. In the next few years, preschoolers will be able to pick out words or phrases in a book, but also become skilled at telling a story through pictures alone. Emerging literacy is blooming!

So, just how do you “read” pictures? While this can be a challenge for some adults with whom reading words is ingrained, the beauty of such a book is that it invites children to read it to you, opens the door to conversation, sparks the imagination to create a story, and offers young ones the opportunity to develop language. One way to get started with a child is to look at and talk about the cover.

Chris Van Allsburg, author of The Polar Express and many more wonderful picture books, says, “At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration." This approach to writing is also a good approach to reading picture books, and especially wordless book.

After opening the cover to the first pages, ask you child questions like “What is this character trying to do?” or “What do you think is happening here?” Then, before turning the next page, ask, “What do you think will happen next?”

Here are my three favorite, tried-and-true wordless picture books to help you get started: