Since the beginning of school, Grade 1 has been focusing on how illustrations help us to understand stories. We explored early readers (without words) and covered up the words when reading Elmer by David McKee. By taking our attention away from the text in books, we began to understand how much information is available to us in pictures.
We used these sentence starters to guide our explorations:
In one of our different activities, we compared PERSPECTIVEs. After independently working to record our own thinking on post-it notes in an early reader, we found a partner who had the same book. We compared notes (observations, ideas, and questions) to understand how different points of view and different personal connections can lead to different understandings of the same story.
After two weeks of exploring only pictures between home and school, we added words. We read Elmer again -- this time with the words! The question we sought to answer was how words and pictures work together to tell a story.
Here are some highlights from our class discussion:
We used these sentence starters to guide our explorations:
- I see...
- I taste...
- I smell...
- I hear...
- I feel...
- I think...
- I wonder...
In one of our different activities, we compared PERSPECTIVEs. After independently working to record our own thinking on post-it notes in an early reader, we found a partner who had the same book. We compared notes (observations, ideas, and questions) to understand how different points of view and different personal connections can lead to different understandings of the same story.
After two weeks of exploring only pictures between home and school, we added words. We read Elmer again -- this time with the words! The question we sought to answer was how words and pictures work together to tell a story.
Here are some highlights from our class discussion:
- "The words and pictures can answer questions that we have. If you have questions about the pictures, look at the words. If you have questions about the words, look at the pictures." (Georgia)
- "Together words and pictures make a book more interesting." (Aron)
- "You can learn more using the words and pictures. They can teach you." (Scarlett)
- "If you look at the words and the pictures, you can get more ideas." (Jakob)
- "Using both the words and the pictures gives you more information."