Before Words: Wordless Picture Books and the Development of Reading in Young Children (Language and Literacy Series)

In this book, the author challenges reductive views of emergent literacy prevalent in many of today’s kindergarten and pre-K classrooms. As an alternative, Lysaker explains how reading wordless books with young children helps them to develop a range of comprehension abilities that are important for understanding narrative texts. Readers will find concrete methods to help them gauge, document, and respond to children as they make meaning of and respond to wordless books. Through description and analysis, the text reveals the undervalued richness of young children’s emergent comprehension and the intricate, purposeful nature of their specific early thinking activities. Before Words encourages readers to think about young children’s comprehension as complex meaning-making and suggests new ways of responding to the unique sense-making tools young children use during wordless book reading. Book Features: Demonstrates how young children develop reading comprehension abilities even before learning to read print. Expands on reading as more than just a technical skill. Engages the whole child and scaffolds their formation of relationships with other people, including peers, teachers, families, and communities. Nurtures students’ creativity, positive relationships with storytelling, and social-emotional growth. Offers guidance for building a wordless book library, including a selected list of books. In this book, the author challenges reductive views of emergent literacy prevalent in many of today's kindergarten and pre-K classrooms. As an alternative, Lysaker explains how reading wordless books with young children helps them to develop a range of comprehension abilities that are important for understanding narrative texts. Readers will find concrete methods to help them gauge, document, and respond to children as they make meaning of and respond to wordless books. Through description and analysis, the text reveals the undervalued richness of young children's emergent comprehension and the intricate, purposeful nature of their specific early thinking activities. "Before Words" encourages readers to think about young children's comprehension as complex meaning-making and suggests new ways of responding to the unique sense-making tools young children use during wordless book reading. This book: (1) Demonstrates how young children develop reading comprehension abilities even before learning to read print; (2) Expands on reading as more than just a technical skill; (3) Illustrates how to engage the whole child and scaffold their formation of relationships with other people, including peers, teachers, families, and communities; (4) Shows how to nurture students' creativity, positive relationships with storytelling, and social-emotional growth; and (5) Offers guidance for building a wordless book library, including a selected list of books. [Foreword by Peter Johnston.] As an alternative to reductive views of emergent literacy, Lysaker explains how wordless books help young children to develop a range of comprehension abilities that are important for understanding narrative texts. Readers will find concrete methods to help them gauge, document, and respond to children as they make meaning of wordless books. "Whereas most literacy assessments for children who do not yet read involve decoding and phonics skills, reading wordless picture books presents an opportunity to evaluate and encourage young children's comprehension and meaning-making skills and introduce them to narrative"-- Provided by publisher Cover......Page 2 Index......Page 1 About the Author......Page 17