SpOtLiGhT oN sPeEcH bUbBlEs

Everyone who knows me knows I am in love with Elephant and Piggie.  There are a dozen things to love about these books... the kid-friendly topics, the humor, the facial expressions, the readability for beginning readers... but today, I'm talking about speech bubbles.  Mo Willems, the author of the Elephant and Piggie series, isn't the only one who has figured out the magical appeal of speech bubbles. Kids love them and each year there are more and more children's books written in this style.

Do you know what kids see when they look at this page spread?  White space. And when you're an emergent reader, this calls for a sigh of relief because this book looks like something they can read.  And to them, it looks similar to the comics their older siblings are reading, so it's cool too!  

Do you know what I see when I look at this page spread?  A built-in readers' theater!!  I love the fluency and comprehension development that comes with preparing to "perform" a readers' theater.  When you look through an Elephant and Piggie book (as with many books written in speech bubbles), you'll notice one character's dialogue is a bit more challenging than the others.  In this book, for example, the text level of Elephant's dialogue is more difficult than Piggie's. And the reason that matters is because kids of varying levels can read and process the same text together.  And that's cool to me.

The kids in my class are doing more comprehension work than they sometimes realize when they're practicing their "script."  There's a lot of analysis and inferring that takes place as readers study facial expressions to understand emotions.  They also notice details in the print that would affect how their voice sounds, such as punctuation marks or large, bold words inside the speech bubbles.  And they pay attention to the plot line, tying the emotions and the print features all together so they can make decisions about how their own facial expressions should look and how their voice should sound when reading aloud.

    

If you haven't yet discovered these books, ask your media specialist or visit your local library... your kids will love them.  And there are more than a dozen, so be prepared to become obsessed.  :)  Yo!  Yes? by Chris Raschka is another speech-bubble book my children love to read over and over. (It's even simpler than Elephant and Piggie... perfect for practicing expression related to punctuation.)  Many first and second graders also like the Fly Guy books by Tedd Arnold... they are a mix of speech bubbles and narrative text, so they're perfect for adding in a "narrator."  

And, if your writing curriculum will allow for a brief detour, be prepared... your students may want to try writing their own speech-bubble-stories.  These FREE templates can be downloaded in my TPT STORE... they work well for realistic fiction and/or personal narratives... it's really up to what you're working on at the time.

Do you have a favorite speech-bubble book your kids love?  We'd love to find more to add to our list!

Have fun and happy teaching!  :)