How to read picture books

After her first day in Reception, the Girl brought back a book which is quite unlike what I have been used to reading with her. This was a Level 1 book from the Oxford Reading Tree, with only pictures on every page, and without any words. But, unlike other picture books for kids, each tableau is very detailed and tells a little story in itself. So, how are we supposed to read these with the children?

Here are some suggestions I have managed to glean:

• invite the child to tell the story based on the pictures in front of them; if they get stuck, give prompts: ‘What do you think is happening? What are they doing? Why do you think they are doing this?’ etc.
• talk about the expressions on the characters’ faces: are they angry? sad? excited? happy? Try to expand the children’s vocabulary by adding as many synonyms as you can think of.
• encourage the child to think about how the story might develop, before they turn the page; once they have moved to the next page, it will be fun for them to check if they were right in their predictions.
• play word and letter games: find words starting/ending with a certain letter, or ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with the letter …’ (and let the child take the initiative as well, if she/he wants to – the Girl definitely did, and she clearly felt very grown up in setting me the challenge of finding the objects she thought about).

According to this philosophy, reading is about more than just letters on a piece of paper (or a screen). Reading is about deciphering a story, using visual clues, as well as any other clues, in order to make out the details, and the ability to predict the outcome is a key skill that needs to be developed. (In passing be it said, working with images in this way is particularly appealing for someone like me, a medievalist at heart, bearing in mind that medieval manuscripts made such wonderful use of images in order to punctuate the text and to stimulate the imagination of their audience, many of whom were in fact largely illiterate and could rely only on the visual elements).