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by using the P.I.C.T.U.R.E acronym with students Effective teachers already know how to use picturebooks to increase comprehension (Hilden & Jones, 2013), introduce new concepts (Beaty, 2012), teach self-regulation (Cooper, 2007; Hansen & Zambo, 2007) and engage learners in new experiences (Travers & Travers, 2008). Further, picturebooks can make an impact on the development of the whole child- socially, personally, intellectually, culturally, and aesthetically (Phillips & Sturm, 2013). We contend using WPB simply makes these things accessible to all of your students. It is for these reasons, we encourage you to use wordless picturebooks in your classrooms. Here is a link to a few titles we hope you will try with your students this year!
References
Beaty, J. (2012). Skills for preschool teachers. (9thed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Buccieri, L. R., & Economy, P. (2012). Writing Children's Books for Dummies, 2nd Edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Cooper, P. M. (2007). Teaching young children self-regulation through children's books. Early Childhood Education Journal, 34(5), 315-322.
Doonan, J. (1993). Looking at pictures in picturebooks. Stroud, England: Thimble Press
Galda, L., Cullinan, B. E., & Sipe, L. R. (2010). Literature and the child. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.
Gangwer, T. (2009). Visual impact, visual teaching: Using images to strengthen learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Gillenwater, C. (2014). Reading images: the phenomenon of intertextuality and how it may contribute to developing visual literacy with advanced placement English / language arts students. Journal of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research, 8(4), 251-263.
Gredler, M. (2001). Learning and instruction: Theory into practice. (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Merrill.
Johnson, D. (2012). The joy of children's literature. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Hansen, C.C., & Zambo, D. (2005). Piaget, meet Lilly: Understanding child development through picture book characters. Early Childhood Education Journal, 33(1), 39-45.
Hilden, K. & Jones, J. (2013). Effective interactive read-alouds build stronger comprehension. Reading Today, April/May, 17-19.
Justice, L., & Pence, K. (2005). Scaffolding with storybooks: A guide for enhancing young children's language and literacy achievement. Newark, Del.: International Reading Association
Lambert, M. D. (2015).Reading picture books with children: how to shake up storytime and get kids talking about what they see. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge.
Lohfink, G. (2012). Promoting self-questioning through picture book illustrations. Reading Teacher, 66(4), 295-299. doi:10.1002/TRTR.01124
Martin, W.P. (2015). Wonderfully wordless: The 500 most recommended graphic novels and picture books. Rowman & Littlefield: London.
Marciano, D. (2002). Chapter five: Teaching styles as evidenced in classrooms: A semiotic look at picturebooks in transmediation in the classroom: A semiotics-based media literacy framework, 63-70.
Martin, R., & Murtagh, E. M. (2015). Preliminary findings of Active Classrooms: An intervention to increase physical activity levels of primary school children during class time. Teaching and Teacher Education, 52113-127. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2015. 09.007
Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D., & Pollock, J. E. (2001).Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Mikkelsen, N. (2000). Words and pictures: Lessons in children's literature and literacies. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Olshanky, B. (2008). Power of Pictures. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Phillips, E., & Sturm, B. (2013). Do picturebooks about starting kindergarten portray the Kindergarten Experience in Developmentally Appropriate Ways? Early Childhood Education Journal, 41(6), 465-475.
Reading Rockets. (2013).http://www.readingrockets.org/article/sharing-wordless-picture-books
Salisbury, M., & Styles, M. (2012). Children's picturebooks: The art of visual storytelling. London: Laurence King Publishing
Serafini, F. (2014). Reading the visual: An introduction to teaching multimodal literacy. New York: Teachers College Press
Sipe, L. (2000). “Those gingerbread boys could be brothers”: How children respond to literature. Human Sciences Press, Inc. 31(2).
Travers, B. E., & Travers, J. F. (2008). Children’s literature: A developmental perspective. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons
Yu, X. (2009). Levels of meaning and children: An exploratory study of picturebooks' illustrations. Library and Information Science Research, 31, 240-246. doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2009.07.003
Drs. Julie Bryant and Tamara Samek are on faculty at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri. Both focused their dissertation work on reviewing award winning literature to positively influence children. Their love of the arts and literature spills over into their teaching, presentations, and publications.
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is a valuable treasure for getting to know your students as writers and to encourage them personally in their writing endeavors.
No matter what---students should be writing EVERY DAY! Again, this doesn’t have to be huge! In fact, quick and easy writing opportunities are more motivating and allow students of all levels to feel successful and a sense of accomplishment. Short bursts of writing can be done using the applications of Twitter, Padlet, or even class discussion boards through Blackboard or Google Classroom.
Regardless, the writing we assign kids should be meaningful! Lucy Calkins is often quoted as saying, “We cannot teach writing well unless we trust that there is a real, human reason to write.” This linked blog is full of authentic, meaningful writing ideas! One fantastic meaningful project is called the Slice of Life challenge. This project is very motivational for even the most reluctant writers. The Slice of Life challenge can be completed in various ways. Classrooms can complete in the month long challenge, weekly challenges, or daily challenges. The month long challenge occurs during the month of March each year. During this time students are encouraged to write or blog each day. What they write is 100% their choice. They can share about daily events, major events, questions they might have, or even just share about themselves. The goal is to write! Once students have recorded their thoughts, they are then provided opportunities to share them with others while they also get to read and comment on what other students have written. Students can participate daily online with students from around the world in blog format. Students could also participate on a local level by creating a closed blog within the school structure. A third option would be to create print journals that could be brought to class daily. With this, students could be given five minutes before class begins to share with each other and write comments. For teachers who wish to participate in these challenge weekly or daily, this same format could be applied.
We believe that the ideas we have shared are helpful for even your most reluctant readers. Further, we feel that if you’ve done all of these writing ideas we’ve just shared...you’ve already earned your A’s!
A is for Authentic, Across the Curriculum, and Assessment.
Remember, you don’t have to grade EVERYTHING! Writing is a process! Use formative assessment to give feedback on their writing throughout the process. Use summative assessment when they’ve polished and published their writing. For additional rubrics for many writing activities we recommend looking into Daniels et al. (2007). Content-area writing: Every teacher’s guide. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Ruth Culham (2016), mentioned earlier, also has numerous rubrics and scoring guides for writing designed for individual grade levels.. Some are linked here.
Authentic--Choice makes writing meaningful, connects to relevant learning, and makes learning personal. All of the ideas we’ve shared have presented authentic ways of getting your students to write.
Across the curriculum--Nearly every one of these writing strategies can be used within any content areas including math, science, social studies, and the arts.
Assessment-- Writing assessment can be done through rubrics, scoring guides, written or verbal feedback. Authentic writing deserves authentic assessment. It is not necessary to do worksheets or paper/pencil activities. Consider these questions when assessing writing: What are you looking for? What are the strengths/weaknesses of the writer’s piece? Perhaps focus on ONE SKILL and assess it within the piece. Allow your students to assess themselves, too.
We’ve shown you ideas for helping your writers to feel successful daily in finding their voice through choice. So, make it your goal...starting tomorrow...to give your writers opportunities have voice and choice every single day!
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