Wordless Books Are Fun For Everyone

As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words” and that is just one reason we love wordless books at Tandem. Sharing wordless books with children celebrates imagination, critical thinking, vocabulary development, narrative skills and provides ample opportunities for open-ended questions. Furthermore, wordless books allow families to enjoy a book in any language they choose. Flashlight by Lizi Boyd and The Girl and the Bicycle by Mark Pett are two noteworthy wordless titles in the current Tandem collection. Then, after you’ve read about these books, be sure to click on the links to go to our affiliate link to get your own copies!

Flightlight by Lizi Boyd

The stunning illustrations in Flashlight will keep families engaged and eager to turn each page of this beautiful book. The book follows a child exploring a forest with a flashlight. As the child illuminates different aspects of the forest, families can build vocabulary and knowledge with children by asking young readers to identify what the main character is looking at and what they know about each animal. For example, when the flashlight is pointed at a fox, families can ask: “What animal is the child looking at?”; “What is the fox next to?”; “What do you know about foxes?”. The pages of Flashlight also have cut outs that reveal a small portion of the illustrations on the following pages. This is another great opportunity to foster critical thinking by asking children what they think is coming next.

Tandem Activity Tip: A fun post-reading activity families can do after enjoying Flashlight is to equip children with their own flashlight and ask them questions as they explore the objects in their home environment with the light of a flashlight. You could make the activity more challenging by asking children to shine the flashlight on an object you name. Alternately, you can just enjoy the creative approach children bring to exploring with their own flashlights.

The Girl and the Bicycle by Mark Pett

Families can help young readers develop narrative skills and critical thinking by asking questions. Narrative skills are the ability to tell stories and describe events and stories with a beginning, middle, and end. They are an important developmental stage of early literacy.  Questions like: “What is happening on this page?”, “What happened before?”, “What do you think will happen next?” and “Can you tell me the entire story?”, help guide children to create and order a story. Wordless books like The Girl and the Bicycle by Mark Pett are excellent for practicing narrative skills with children. The Girl and the Bicycle is an endearing tale of a girl who really wants a bicycle. She works hard to save money for the bicycle by raking leaves, selling lemonade and helping her neighbor. The expressive and engaging illustrations make the plot easy to follow regardless of the lack of words.

Tandem Activity Tip: Families can use post-its to write one key word or short phrase on each page of a wordless book like The Girl and the Bicycle. Helping young readers assign one word to each page reinforces print awareness and letter knowledge while allowing children to imagine the story as they wish.