Hi!
The school year is back in full swing now and I am loving seeing my babies and doing what I love to do again! Since I am at a new school this year, I wanted to collect some solid baseline data and get a better idea of my students' language abilities. One way I get a good picture of how a student is doing with language skills is by using wordless picture books! What's a wordless picture book? It's just like it sounds - a picture book with no words! The reader can create his/her own story using the pictures. They are wonderful for using imagination and creativity and it really gives me insight into so many aspects of a student's language, including describing, naming, narrative language, comprehension, sentence complexity, vocabulary, identifying emotions, and predictions! They are also great during therapy! Here are seven of my favorites to pull off the shelf! {Affiliate links provided for your convenience}
1. Chalk
Chalk is about three children who go on quite the magical adventure after deciding to draw with chalk on a rainy day. The pictures in this book are so detailed! It is great for eliciting descriptive language. It is also one of those books where you never know what might happen next, so it lends well to making predictions.
I LOVE the Frog books! While the pictures may not be as pretty as other books, the author does a great job at using humor and some mischief to tell great stories. Since there is always some trouble going on, this book (or any book in this series) is great for identifying problems and coming up with solutions.
This book tells the story of a dog who loves his ball. He plays with his ball, sleeps with his ball, he lives with his ball. But then one day his ball pops! I like this book for therapy because the dog demonstrates a lot of actions, goes to several places, and experiences lots of emotions (especially after the loss of his ball!) I also find that my kids really enjoy books with animals.
With some twists on an old fairy tale, this wordless book is about a fox who steals a chicken. The chicken's friends chase after them and they all go through some troubles as they run through the woods. The book has lots of twists and has a surprising but cute ending. This book is great for sequencing, identifying characters, and predicting. The ending also lends itself well to talking about morals.
This is an oldie but a goodie. Plus - I love the illustrations for all of Tomie DePaola's books! This story is about a little old lady who tries to make pancakes for breakfast but runs into some problems while gathering her ingredients and making her breakfast! This book always gets a laugh out of my kids. I like it for working on sequencing, identifying problems and solutions, and talking about how sometimes you need to keep working through problems to get what you want!
6. Where's Walrus?
This is a funny little story perfect for younger students about a Walrus who decides he is bored at the zoo and decides to escape! He visits all around town and meets lots of people. This pictures are simplistic in this book, which makes it ideal for pre-school students. Where's Walrus hits on a number of targets, including identifying emotions, identifying people and places in the community, and is also good for WH questions, such as "Where is Walrus?" and "Who is Walrus with?".
7. Good Night, Gorilla
Goodnight Gorilla is a classic wordless picture book for the little ones. While the zoo keeper locks up the cages and assumes the animals are going to bed for the night, the animals have other plans! I like using this book with my pre-school population to target action verbs (especially the present progressive tense). It also is great for simple predictions and WH questions.
Do you use wordless picture books during assessments or therapy? What are some of your favorites?
~Erin
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