Go Wordless!

 I have been a total book nerd my entire life so when I became a mom I could not wait to share my passion for reading with my children. My daughter, who had an amazingly long attention span from toddler-hood,  had me read James and the Giant Peach to her three times before she was five. I struggled sometimes with my oldest son, because he always wanted me to read nonfiction books (definitely not my preference, but now I know all sorts of interesting facts about bats, dinosaurs, sharks, monster trucks, etc.).

If you have not read this book check it out today! It is so funny!

Zane, my youngest son, is now six and he has not stopped talking since he learned to string more than two words together. Reading aloud to my little motormouth has always been a giggle-inducing experience (for me at least) because he interjects more than the little red chicken in David Ezra Stein's Interrupting Chicken.

Since Zane loves to gibber-jabber and add his own two (or fifty) cents to every story, I love reading wordless picture books with him. You may be asking yourself how you can "read" a book with only pictures. The illustrations in a wordless picture book show the action and movement of a story, so all of the dialogue and description gets to be written by the reader. What could be more fun for a rambunctious chatterbox with an exuberant imagination.

Numerous early literacy experts have espoused the benefits of reading wordless picture books and you can read some of that here. Of course, it is great that reading wordless picture books develops early literacy skills. However, I love reading them because Zane's narrations crack me up. So even if you don't really care about early literacy skills (which I am sure isn't true), you should check out a wordless picture book for your own entertainment. I promise you it will be worth it.

One of Zane's favorites is Chalk by Bill Thompson.  A group of kids are playing with chalk in the park when everything they draw comes to life, including a ferocious t-Rex.  Zane has "read" this story multiple times and each time it gets longer with more detail. It is especially hilarious when he does the voice of the t-Rex being washed away by the rain, which sounds a little bit like the Wicked Witch of the West melting at the end of the Wizard of the Oz.

I have also used wordless picture books with my young author's club. Each child chooses a wordless picture book to write words for. Sometimes I have them practice writing the dialogue or just describing the setting and characters.

Here are some other wordless or nearly wordless picture books that are at the top of my list: