The effects of creative music drama activities using wordless picture books on musical expressive abilities and visual literacy of young children

Teachers’ sharing of picture books is a quintessential activity in early childhood classrooms, and has been found to be predictive of children’s language and literacy skill development. Although most research, to date, has focused on the manner in which preschool teachers share text-based books with their students, recent work has recommended that teachers include wordless books as part of their classroom book sharing routines. Yet, little is known about how the absence of text might influence teachers’ discourse styles. The present study, thus, explored the discourse styles used by preschool teachers of Latino dual-language learners when sharing both text-based and wordless picture books with their class. Results showed that, while there were common features across both book types, when sharing wordless books teachers tended to adopt a more co-constructive style, by asking questions and supporting children’s participation in the sharing of the story. At the same time, they were more likely to elicit predictions and analyses from the children. The findings highlight the importance of including wordless books in preschool classroom book sharing interactions, especially in classrooms serving dual-language learners.

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Using wordless picture books to promote second language learning

ELT Journal ◽

10.1093/elt/45.3.245 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 45 (3) ◽

pp. 245-251 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Margaret Early

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Language Learning ◽

Picture Books ◽

Second Language Learning ◽

Wordless Picture Books

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The Very Hungry Caterpillar in Tuscany

10.36253/978-88-6655-326-7 ◽

2013 ◽

Keyword(s):

Action Research ◽

Young Children ◽

Picture Books ◽

Children's Books ◽

Children’S Books ◽

Very Young Children ◽

Specific Goal ◽

Level Of Understanding

The volume publishes some essays illustrating experiences which attempted to promote reading with very young children in nurseries and infant schools, as part of a project on the picture books by Eric Carle, a well-known American illustrator of children's books. In particular, this initiative took place during the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years, in a large number of nurseries and infant schools in some areas of Tuscany (Pistoia, Firenze, Grosseto, Livorno, Lucca, Viareggio, and the Empolese area). The main aim of the project, carried out as action-research, was to present the books of Eric Carle and investigate the level of understanding of the stories proposed by the famous illustrator. The specific goal of the project was to introduce teachers, educators, librarians and parents to the picture books written and illustrated by Eric Carle and translated into Italian.

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