After I delivered a webinar for Linguascope in August 2020 (click here to access my presentation called “You can teach (nearly) everything with a picture book”), Lisa, in Malaysia, got in touch and asked me if I had a sequence I follow on how to teach my pupils with picture books. As I had never yet attempted to put all my ideas down in one place, I thought it was about time I did it!
The following are suggestions based on my experience and it is written like a menu: you need to pick and choose the activities most appropriate to each book and each class. Please share in the comments below any that you have tried and/or would like to add to the list!
Please note that the questions can be asked either in L1 or L2, depending on your learners and setting.
Before you open the book:
- Ask your students what they think you are going to learn about, with the book.
- Ask your students what they think the story is about.
- Ask your students to read the title of the book out loud – and possibly the name of the author!
- Ask for a description of the front cover – possibly even the back cover.
- Ask someone to read out the blurb at the back, if there is one.
On first reading
- Read all the way through without interruptions.
- Read part of the story, stop to check comprehension, read some more, stop and check etc.
- Read part of the story only (preferably stopping at a cliffhanger!) and save the rest for another lesson.
On second reading
- Agree on an action for 1 or 2 key words or phrases; when the children hear the words, they all join in with the action.
- Pick out a handful of key words that the children have to say out loud when you pause and show a specific picture, when you do a specific agreed action.
During following readings:
- Pick out specific words/phrases in/from the story for the children to practise and memorise.
- Drop the last word in each sentence to see if the children can finish off the sentences for you.
Extra ideas to develop listening skills:
- Read a sentence from the story out; the children have to decide if it is correct or not, then correct it if not.
- Read a sentence from the story out: the children have to put their hands up when you say a word that you have changed from the original story.
Extra ideas to develop speaking skills:
- Use words, phrases or whole sentences for modelling; pupils repeat after the teacher.
- Select a passage to practise choral reading by both teacher and pupils.
- Story re-enacted in pairs/small groups/as a class/ in a hall.
- The children share their opinions of the story.
Extra ideas to develop reading skills:
- Ask the children to translate a chosen page from L2 to L1.
- Use a visualiser to display a page of the story; the children read it silently, in their heads.
- Use a visualiser to display a page of the story; the children have to collect and categorise all the nouns/verbs/adjectives etc from the page.
Extra ideas to develop writing skills:
- Human sentences: make cards of words from a page in the story; distribute the cards randomly to the children; they have to rearrange themselves and hold their cards up, so that when you read their cards you are reading the story again.
- Give a translation of a page in L1 to the children; they have to re-translate it into L2.
- Dictation of one of the pages of the story.
- The children adapt the story, e.g. change the animals and their descriptions and make it their own.
- The children write a book review.
Extra ideas to develop vocabulary learning:
- Ask the children to keep a tally of how many times they spot a certain word.
- Ask the children to list all the words in the story that cover a certain topic, e.g. for spring: fleurs, pousser, ensoleillé.
Extra ideas to develop phonetical awareness:
- Ask the children to keep a tally of how many times they hear a certain sound.
- Use a visualiser to project the text and ask the children to “collect” all the words with a certain grapheme or phoneme in them.
Extra ideas to develop grammatical skills:
- Ask the children to write down as many of a selected type of word as they can, e.g. adjectives, nouns, verbs.
- Ask the children to change the adjectives in the story (adjectival agreement).
- Children rewrite (part of) the story in a different person, e.g. “je” becomes “il” or “elle”.
- Children rewrite (part of) the story in a different tense, e.g. from past to present.
After you have finished working with the book:
- Consider re-visiting it later in the year (or another year), so the children recall their work and realise how much progress they have made.
- Encourage the children to consider reading the book (or their own version of it) to younger pupils in school or a younger sibling.