Teacher Educator Blog | Literacy

Early Childhood Education – ECII 5 year olds

Throughout this year, I have worked closely with CONNECT Researcher Dr. Christine Lee and EC2 Demonstration Teachers Kelly Peters, Arlen Nava, and Eric Varela as we investigated the power of wordless books and play in storytelling. Toward the end of this Spring quarter, the EC2 students in Room 13 were able to transform their classroom space into a theater, bringing life to students’ favorite wordless picture books. The Room 13 Theatre featured Home [1], Field Trip to the Moon [2], Mr. Wuffles [3], The Lion and The Mouse [4], Where’s The Walrus [5], and Where’s the Walrus, and Penguin [6]. Each group had students, or actors, who had been practicing telling their favorite wordless stories on a theatrical stage.

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Early Childhood Education – ECII 5 year olds

This year, I have had the opportunity to observe and participate in research on the importance of storytelling through play and wordless picture books with Dr. Christine Lee at CONNECT Research and EC2 Demonstration Teachers Kelly Peters, Eric Varela, and Arlen Nava. In the spring quarter, we created imaginary creatures in Rooms 14 and 15. With rolled papers, pom-pom balls, pipe cleaners, beads, and macaroni, the students of Rooms 14 and 15 sparked their creativity to make imaginary creatures. 

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Early Childhood Education – ECII 5 year olds

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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Early Childhood Education – 5 year olds

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.

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