Wordless Books: A Teacher’s Tool for Comprehension and Fluency

Carol Brewer
Nov 02, 2009

Wordless books are books with pictures and no words. They can be used in various ways to improve learning. One use is for teaching comprehension. You can "think aloud" while showing the pictures. This "think aloud" can be focused on one of the comprehension strategies. For example, "The Snowman" by Raymond Briggs (1978) is a sequence of events to build a snowman. You can use this wordless book to teach the sequence of events. You can model the order of events to build the snowman. The events can be written on a sequence graphic organizer, and you can then model how to write a sequence summary from the graphic organizer. Each group of students can then be given another wordless book for them to apply what has been modeled.

The lesson could look like this:

Lesson Essential Question: How do I use pictures to strengthen the understanding of sequencing?
Assessment Prompt: wordless books
Assessment Prompt: events
Assessment Prompt: sequence of events

Activating Strategy: Teacher gives pairs of students "sequence cards" to put in order. Students explain their sequence to another pair of students.

Teaching Strategies:
Graphic Organizer: Tri-fold Sequence Foldable with Beginning, Middle, End

Use the wordless book "The Snowman" to model a sequence of events using pictures. Use "think aloud" to make the connection from the wordless book to comprehension.

AP#1: Students write a description of wordless books on a sticky note and share with their partner.
Give partners another wordless book to apply what has been taught. Students look through the book and identify the events.

AP#2: Partners write the events on the back of their Sequence Foldable
Show students how to use their list of events to determine the most important event that happened in the beginning, middle, and end.

AP#3: Partners apply what has been modeled and write or draw the events on their Sequence Foldable.
Assignment: Students use their foldable to write the words for their wordless book. They share their books with the class or another pair/group of students.

Summarizing Strategy: 3-2-1. Students write 3 things about Sequencing, 2 strengths of using Wordless Books, and 1 thing they learning from the lesson.

Another way to use Wordless Books is for fluency. Think of the power behind having students tell the story using the pictures. By making the proper connections, students will have a better understanding of how fluency "feels". It is suggested that you write what students say as they tell the story from the pictures. Then, students can reread what you wrote to strengthen fluency. Another suggestion is for students to write the text for the pictures. Student writing is a great tool for fluency. Then reread the text to a lower grade level student to build confidence with reading.

Additional Fluency activities can be found in the Comprehensive Literacy book.