During the Winter quarter, I have had the opportunity to observe and participate in research on the importance of wordless picture books with Dr. Christine Lee at CONNECT Research and EC2 demonstration teachers Kelly Peters, Eric Varela, and Arlen Nava. Through this collaboration, I’ve learned how wordless picture books can facilitate language development through creative oral storytelling that allows for an interactive reading experience for students. Wordless picture books are books with illustrations and little to no text. With a lack of words, there is no “right” or concrete indication of what is occurring, leaving ample space to foster a sense of independence in reading. It also lets students read the illustrations in the book to come up with their own stories and have control over how the stories will take place.
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Diving into Storytelling: A Creative and Theatrical Approach to Literacy
Literacy, Playful Learning
Image 1. Students lining up in front of the classroom to provide tickets and be seated
During this winter quarter, I had the opportunity to visit the Room 13 Theater as students became the characters from a wordless book called Where’s Walrus? On this day, I watched as the students brought their creative interpretations of the book into a live performance. I lined up in front of the classroom alongside the students of Room 13. A student was waiting at the front of the room, and asked me to put my boleto into his ticket box. “Boletos please”, said the student as he collected the tickets from the class. After I gave him my ticket, he instructed me to sit in the last row. Everyone was seated in the audience, eager to see their peers act out Where’s Walrus?. I was equally as excited. As the teacher drew the curtain, the narrator began storytelling in Spanish. Two main actors took the stage, portraying two characters: one, a security guard relentlessly searching for a walrus that escaped the zoo, while the other played as a walrus cunningly camouflaging itself to elude the guard’s detection.
Read MoreFamily Storytelling in Remote Learning
EC II: Early Childhood 5-6 year olds
Literacy, Remote Learning
Every moment in life is a story, and the most crucial part of teaching storytelling is to value and make space for students’ lives and voices to be heard. When we moved to remote instruction, I wondered how we could teach storytelling in meaningful and personal ways to our class. However, I discovered that one of the advantages of remote instruction is the unique access teachers can have to students’ families and lives. I engaged whole families throughout our storytelling journey, making our learning experiences personal and meaningful.
Creating a Virtual Alphabet Book: Literacy in Remote Learning
EC I: Early Childhood 4-5 year olds
Literacy, Remote Learning
When we began remote learning, we wanted to find ways to connect and create something meaningful as a class. It was important that we continued to build a community of young learners so that despite being far apart from one another, we still felt connected. One of the daily things we did was to share and check in with our students’ lives at home. We got to know our students in their own homes as they shared what they have been doing with their families. As we listened to our students’ conversations, we noticed that our families often went outside for walks. We wondered if we could use this commonality to bring together resources and conversation into our virtual and remote learning space.
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