Wordless Picture Book Storytelling

With a wordless picture book (all pictures, no text), the child becomes the author and reads the whole story from the images alone. Because there are no words to decode, even a pre-reader does the real work of reading: inventing the narrative, inferring what characters think and feel, and stringing events into a story.

  1. Choose a wordless (or nearly wordless) picture book — classics include Mercer Mayer’s A Boy, a Dog and a Frog and Tomie dePaola’s Pancakes for Breakfast, or any picture-led book whose story is clear from the images.

  2. Introduce it: “This book tells the story with pictures — there are no words, so you get to be the reader.” Wordless books need this little intro or it isn’t obvious what to do.

  3. Model first: go through a few pages inventing the story aloud yourself — “Look, the boy is sneaking up… I think he wants to catch the frog.”

  4. Hand it over: go back to the start and let the child tell the story page by page while you listen and wonder (“How do you think he feels here? What’s he going to do?”).

  5. Push gently for inference and sequence: “How did we get from here to there? Why is she sad now?” Re-tell on a second pass to add detail.

  6. Optional: jot the child’s words on sticky notes, one per page, so their wordless book becomes their own authored story to “read” again.

Variation: lay photographed or photocopied pages out of order and have the child sequence them, then narrate. For a bilingual family, invite a relative to tell or record the story in your home language alongside English. For a confident child, ask for character dialogue (“What is the dog saying here?”).

Requirements

  • Space: Any comfortable reading spot
  • Surface: None; a table helps if you sequence printed pages
  • Materials: A wordless or nearly-wordless picture book (libraries shelve many); optional sticky notes and a pen to capture the child's narration
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; pairs of children love trading the telling page by page
  • Supervision: Light

Rationale & Objective

Wordless picture books let a pre-reader do the cognitive heart of reading before decoding is possible — they construct the narrative themselves. Jalongo and colleagues (2002) note that because the pictures carry the story, “not-yet-readers” can fully participate, developing a sense of story, sequence, and oral storytelling, and that children “recognize, interpret, and express themselves through pictures long before they master print.” Crawford & Hade (2000) found children make meaning from wordless books using prior knowledge, intertextual clues, perspective-taking, and story language — the same processes used for print. Telling a story with a wordless book as a prop yields richer narratives — longer and stronger in setting, plot, character, and vocabulary — than storytelling without one (van Kraayenoord & Paris, cited in Jalongo et al., 2002). The format is especially powerful for dual-language learners and any child not yet reading print, because comprehension and inference are unbound from decoding. It directly serves Common Core RL.K.7 (describe the relationship between illustrations and the story) and the narrative-structure goals of Head Start ELOF (P-LIT 4) and the EYFS Comprehension ELG.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: labels individual pictures (“a dog… a frog”) without linking them; needs the adult to supply the story; jumps around the pages
  • Developing: tells what’s happening on each page and connects a few across the page-turn (“then he runs”); follows picture order; narration is mostly description, light on why
  • Proficient: tells a connected story with a beginning, middle, and end; infers feelings and motives from the pictures (“he’s sad because his frog left”); uses story language (“once,” “suddenly,” “at last”)
  • Advanced: narrates a rich story with dialogue, cause and effect, and character feelings; notices small visual details adults miss and weaves them in; re-tells consistently and adapts the telling for a new listener

Safety Notes

  • A gentle seated activity with no physical risk; the main pitfall is performance pressure, so let the child tell it their way with no “right” version
  • Don’t correct the child’s storyline — there is no wrong narrative in a wordless book, so resist supplying “the real story”
  • If sticky notes or small printed pages are used, keep them from toddlers who mouth paper
  • Match book complexity to the child — an intricate, layered wordless book can be harder than it looks

Hints

  • Playfulness: ham it up as a storyteller — dramatic voices, “and then… can you believe it?!” Let the child’s version be wildly their own, then tell the same book completely differently tomorrow and marvel at the new story.
  • Sustain interest: rotate wordless titles from the library, and capture the child’s narration on sticky notes or as a phone recording so they can “read” their own authored book back. Wordless books reward many retellings.
  • Common mistake: handing the book over with no introduction (the child won’t know what to do), or jumping in to “fix” their story. Model once, then become the audience — your wondering questions do more than your corrections.
  • Limited space / no equipment: any picture-rich book works if you cover or ignore the words; comic strips, a photo album, or the pictures on a packaging box all invite “tell me the story.”
  • Cross-domain: inventing dialogue builds oral language and imagination; inferring feelings builds empathy and perspective-taking; sequencing pictures builds logical order; capturing the words on paper builds early writing and print awareness; ideal for dual-language learners to story-tell in either language.
  • Progression: label the pictures → narrate page by page → connect pages into a flowing story → add feelings and motives (inference) → add dialogue → sequence shuffled pages then narrate → tell the story from memory to a new listener.

Sources

  • Jalongo, M. R., Dragich, D., Conrad, N. K. & Zhang, A. (2002). “Using wordless picture books to support emergent literacy.” Early Childhood Education Journal, 29(3), 167–177
  • Crawford, P. A. & Hade, D. D. (2000). “Inside the picture, outside the frame: Semiotics and the reading of wordless picture books.” Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 15(1), 66–80
  • Arizpe, E. & Styles, M. (2003). Children Reading Pictures: Interpreting Visual Texts. RoutledgeFalmer
  • Common Core RL.K.7 (relationship between illustrations and the story)
  • Head Start ELOF — Goal P-LIT 4 (understanding of narrative structure through storytelling/re-telling)
  • UK EYFS — Comprehension ELG (retell stories using their own words; use recently introduced vocabulary in role-play)
  • Teaching Strategies GOLD Objectives 18a and 18c (interacts during read-alouds; retells stories)