Mrs. Julie Yergler’s 4th grade class was the recipient of a mini-grant from the Cissna Park Education Foundation and 21 wordless picture books were purchased with grant money. Why wordless picture books? 

“Wordless picture books allow students to work on reading with expression and make inferences to determine what is happening in the pictures without the pressure of words,” said Yergler. “Wordless picture books make reading accessible to readers at all levels. The 4th graders chose a book and practiced ‘reading’ it to each other. Then, they invited kindergartners to their classroom and paired up with them to read their books.”

The kindergartners were impressed that the 4th graders knew what the words were when there were no words on the page, and were also able to borrow some of the picture books to use in a writing center.