As I work with teachers across grade levels, many are thinking about how to build community and create a space that is safe and inviting for important thinking and conversation. Whether they are in person and social distanced, whether they are hybrid and have their kids both live and in remote spaces or whether they are fully remote, this is something on every teachers' mind, as it is every fall. So much of the fall is often spent building community, learning how to have thoughtful conversations, building on one another's thinking, learning to disagree and learning to support claims and ideas with evidence. This year is no different in that regard.
Spencer's New Pet by Jessie Sima has been a great wordless book to share early in the year. Mary Lee reviewed the book a while ago and I fell in love with it this spring when I shared it with my 5th graders.
If we want our students to talk about books in critical ways, if we want them to be able to talk about issues in our world, if we want students to learn to grapple with ideas, agree, disagree and grow their thinking, I find that wordless picture books are perfect tools for inviting students into this work early in the year.
This fall, I've been fortunate to work in a few Zoom classrooms, supporting teachers in their work with students. Spencer's New Pet has worked so well with several groups of students. I find that it is a book children (and adults) of all ages engage in joyfully. And it provides so many natural stopping places to notice and celebrate thinking and talk. Because there are very few words, the book is accessible to everyone and children are anxious to share thinking as there is so much to notice in each illustration.
This book was good for several reasons. It helped start discussions around these important behaviors and strategies:
- changing thinking is something readers do
- readers support thinking with evidence
- building on ideas of others is valued here
- we think before, during and after we read
- reading is about more than words; it is about thinking and understanding
- we think in so many different ways as we read
- there is power in rereading
- creators make so many decisions that help us understand
Spencer's New Pet is my most recent favorite wordless book, but I have several and I am always on the lookout for a new favorite to share with students. Sharing a few wordless picture books over the first several weeks of school helps build an intellectual community of talk and collaborative thinking. Here is a link to some other wordless books that are perfect for remote learning.
by Patti Kim. I found it while I was just browsing books. The cover is pretty stunning and the book is amazing. The book tells the story of a young boy who moves to a new country. It captures the struggles and joy in the move. Lots to talk about and the illustrations are gorgeous.
by Lizi Boyd is a gorgeous new wordless picture book that captures ordinary days and the way one boy spends them both inside and outside. There are fun die-cuts in most of the pages that connect the story and that add fun to the book. Lots to notice on each page. And the color choice is unique which I love. Kids will want to revisit this book often and really, it just makes me happy to read it. I love the story as well as the art and the details make it even more fun.
is one that didn't draw me in from the start but one that I fell in love with once I opened it up! Now, this book will definitely draw young readers in with the cover--trains, trucks, planes, and cars do that and this cover has lots to look at (airplane, airport, etc.). At first I thought this book would be like the Donald Crews classics about forms of transportation but I was thrilled to see that it was so much more. The book takes the reader on a journey they will take if they go on a flight--from the cab ride to the airport to getting to the destination, this book captures the experiences of travelers today. I love the inclusion of throwing away liquids before security as well as the stop at the restroom before getting on the flight. But I also love the fact that the author has taken the wordless to a new level with information. Throughout the book are signs you will see in the airport as well as a diagram of the seating on a plane. A bird's eye view of how the planes are organized at gates is also shown. This book is really packed and fun to look at. I can imagine young children will look at it over and over again. So many possibilities for conversations and learning!
by Bill Thompson. This is a wonderful wordless picture book that I thought would make sense for inferring. I started out with inferring predictions with this group. We did a shared reading of the book as a group, talking and predicting using evidence from the pictures. Kids could predict basic things but it became evident that they were reading for isolated events rather than the whole bigger story. They seemed to pay close attention to minor details and went quickly over events that worked together to create a story. They didn't seem to have any focus in mind as they read that could help them put the pieces together.
and each student left with one of these books I asked them to jot notes on stickies as they read. 
by Bill Thompson. This one is patterned similarly to Chalk so I figured the kids would be able to dig deeper and see the problem and solution more clearly after having read and discussed Chalk. For Fossil, I asked students to focus on the big problem and the big solution and we talked through it. They were much better able to do this when they weren't jumping around to lots of unrelated details. Instead, they read with a focus in mind that they wanted to get a sense of the whole story.
. I picked this book for a few reasons. First of all, the problem was hinted to in the title. Second of all, the character does something very obvious to solve the problem and I knew my kids would see that. Finally, I knew that there were lots of books about kids who want pets and I wanted to be able to build on this lesson later in the study. So, "What did the character do to solve the problem?" was the focus of this lesson and kids caught right on, excited to know this little trick for finding solution. (They acted like they were in on a big secret!) The focus was helpful as they weren't jumping all over the place, hoping the random details they noticed would somehow make sense to them.
. This book is about a little girl who wants a dog but her solution is quite clever and the reader has to infer quite a bit to see how deliberate the little girl is throughout the story in order to solve her problem. I knew that understanding this might be a stretch but I knew that it was a good next step to really dig in and figure out what the character did.
, 
, and 
are the three books I'll use next. I may only use one or two depending on how much support students need with this new idea.
and we have been involved in LLI training. I'm realizing that my small group instruction at 3rd grade needs to be as planned and focused as my whole group lessons. And they need to happen over more than a few days. Even though my groups are not really guided reading groups, they are strategy groups that need to move students to new behaviors quickly. When I started thinking about this group, the change they needed seemed too big to happen in a short time, but when I really looked at the students' behaviors and what they had in place, I was able to break the idea down into smaller chunks and change behaviors quickly. My students quickly learned to read across a story, to find the problem and solution and to focus on character actions. Next I am confident that they will be able to see the changes a character has on their journey in the story. These little behaviors have changed in a two week period and has transferred to their independent reading so that they are more engaged and thoughtful readers.
by Chris Raschka is a new one that I love!
by Scott Chandler
by Scott Chandler