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Textless picture book takes away book anxiety

Textless picture books are a relief for children who cannot or do not want to read. Using those books well in the classroom requires skill

Tekst Michiel van Nieuwstadt - Redactie Onderwijsblad - - 8 Minuten om te lezen

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It is teeming with stories in the Where's the cakebooks by Thé Tjong-Khing. Two rats in suits peck a cake from a neatly set table. Papa and a mama dog give chase to the pie thieves, along a road through the woods, over mountains, past ravines. Much, much more happens at the same time as the chase. Quarreling, howling, pointing and falling animals all tell a parallel story.
Where is the cake is a textless picture book. 'Readers' of these books have to find the words themselves and that is precisely why they form a starting point for surprising language lessons that you cannot give in class with a reading book. Language lessons for children who do not yet know a letter, for example. Lessons with children from a war country with an unknown language. Or language lessons for children who hate books.

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“Textless books invite students to find their own words for what they see,” says Sara Van Meerbergen, associate professor of Dutch and researcher in children's and youth literature at Stockholm University. “Children have to name actions themselves and build their own story. They learn a lot from that.”
Van Meerbergen is researching what is in English or German wimmelbooks of Hidden object books is called: textless picture books teeming with details. Research shows that books without text make children open up to the story, making them feel more involved. Where a book with text opts for one story, a teeming book contains countless stories, which you as a 'reader' can fill in with the language you want.

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“Inspiring and enthusing is paramount if you want to get children to read,” says Janneke de Jong-Slagman, teacher of Dutch at the teacher training college at Driestar University of Applied Sciences. “Many children suffer from a fear of reading and a fear of books. The use of books without text in the classroom can help to lower the threshold.”
Some teenagers in practical education freeze when they see a book, De Jong knows. The moo-busy Otto on vacationbooks by Tom Schamp, full of vehicles and traveling figures help them out of the cramp. As an example, De Jong mentions a lesson given by a teacher in practical education. He asked students to take pictures with their phones of five things that struck them in Schamp's books. Then they were allowed to tell classmates what they discovered. “Pedagogically, this is an interesting teaching example,” says De Jong. “You introduce these children to books without them having to read or write and you can still see what they have learned from the 'story'.”

Tom Schamp's very busy textless picture books lower the threshold for children who hate books. Illustration from 'The happiest and largest book of all vehicles' by Tom Schamp.

Sara Van Meerbergen also likes Schamp's books: “His textless books are often large and made of cardboard. It has an appeal that is quite different from that of ordinary books.” She praises Schamp's car books. “Of course I don't claim that all guys like it, but it can arouse interest in some. My children have read those books to pieces.”
Schamp's almost textless work - with a small twisting sentence here and there - can be enjoyed on many levels. Children can put the books on the floor and drive over them with cars. De Jong enjoys Schamp's social criticism when somewhere the S disappears from the Shell logo, leaving the word Hell. And Van Meerbergen talks enthusiastically about the many references in the work of the Belgian to her beloved Brussels.

On the run

Of a completely different order is the textless picture book By aankomst from Shaun Tan. In one of the sepia plates, the arms of a monster wrap around an endangered city. We see a farewell. Tears, hugs, people grab each other's hands for a while. A train departs, a ship sails across the ocean and arrives in a new land. “It's one of my favorite books,” says Swedish-Dutch children's author Marit Törnqvist. “It so powerfully conveys the emotion of what it means as a refugee to leave everything behind and end up in a world where everything is foreign to you.”
Törnqvist has been committed to refugees in Sweden and the Netherlands since 2015. For her, textless books are a possible starting point for human contact with non-native speakers: "You can point to pictures together, listen to each other's language."

Some teens in vocational education freeze when they see a book

It is obvious to use poignant books such as The Arrival in lessons for refugees, but Törnqvist warns against this: “Years ago I gave that book as a gift to a Syrian refugee, but he has put it away. The story got too close.”
Ashiq, a refugee from Afghanistan who lives in her house, received the textless book from Törnqvist Migrants owned by Issa Watanabe. On the cover a group of animals wanders gloomily, clad in old clothes and with improvised knapsacks on their backs. A skeleton chases them: Death is almost literally on their heels. Ahead, the refugees are crammed into a crammed long boat. “Ashiq looked closely, thought the book was beautiful, but never looked at it again,” says Törnqvist. “He floated around in such a boat himself. Those Tan and Watanabe books are not for them, they are for us. Westerners have no idea what it means to be on the run. Use those books in your classroom, but don't give them to a child who has been on the run themselves.”

Textless picture books are the starting point for surprising language lessons, because 'readers' of these books have to find their own words. Illustration from 'Where is the cake' by Thé Tjong-Khing.

Sara Van Meerbergen also believes that The Arrival is not just suitable for a Dutch lesson with non-native speakers with a past as a refugee. "It's a hard book," she says. "I'd be careful about that." In her own Dutch lessons, which Swedes can take for free at Stockholm University, she prefers to use Charlotte Dematons' textless picture books. “A book like The Netherlands is a wonderful introduction to Dutch culture.”

Empathy

De Jong uses The Arrival to strengthen the empathy for refugees among her teacher training students: “I copied pages from the book and distributed them to groups. Look at the pictures, I ask, and think about what happens. How do you think the main character feels when you look at his posture.”
The advantage of a textless book is that you as a reader are not sent in one particular direction, but can determine your own feelings and thoughts. That makes Shaun Tan's book suitable for citizenship education. “You get the conversation going between students without directing it beforehand,” says De Jong. “After that, you can ask teacher training students to do what Tan hasn't done: write a text about the subject. In 2 havo you use a simpler set assignment with the book. Describe in 50 words what you saw, for example.”

Search books

As a volunteer and project leader at the Voorleesexpress, Marleen van der Leij also has experience with textless picture books. “They are very useful if you work with children or parents who do not speak the Dutch language,” she says. “Search books are especially suitable for families who are not yet used to reading aloud. Finding the yellow balloon in the Charlotte Dematons books is a simple task that allows you to experience a cozy moment with a book together.”
At the Voorleesexpress, Van der Leij visited families where children of different ages lived together. “With a textless book it is easy to switch between different age levels.”

Textless books invite students to find their own words for what they see

Van der Leij warns that teachers and parents need guidance to get started with a textless book. “The textless picture book Island by Mark Janssen is wonderful, but it is quite a challenge to come up with your own story.”
Working with textless books is often not that easy, Marit Törnqvist agrees. “It really appeals to your imagination. And don't forget, for some refugees the phenomenon of books is completely new. Children's books? They don't know them at all in Afghanistan, apart from some children's books from Iran that a few have seen.”
Reading a text aloud offers teachers a natural basis. If you do this interactively, by asking questions and explaining words in between, you can invite students to participate.
A textless picture book gives more freedom, but also requires good preparation. “If you project pictures from the book onto an IWB, you can name the things you see in books with children,” says Törnqvist. “But I think you will have to study textless picture books yourself very well before you start working with them as a teacher.”

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