Wordless Picture Books beyond School Boundaries: Visual Bridges toward Family-School Partnerships in Education

Abstract

This article discusses how the shared reading of wordless picture books can contribute to the promotion of parental educational engagement by fostering shared visual reading practices. Prior research shows that wordless picture books contribute to making the reader feel in the story, and facilitate the process of empathy and participation. The content analysis of data collected during a reading project, which involves shared reading with children and their parents, reveals that child-parent shared reading of a visual narrative establishes intense interaction and collaboration, a deep emotional relationship and promotes and enhances the role of the family in an expanded learning community.

Keywords

• wordless picture books
• shared visual reading
• co-construction of meaning
• relationship school-family
• expanded learning community