Picture Readers
Stories where a picture stands in for a word. The child reads the sentence and says the word aloud - which is how the word is remembered.
Who these are for
These are for the child who can decode English words but reads so slowly that the meaning is lost by the end of the sentence. Every teacher knows the one: careful, willing, and three pages behind.
The language here sits a little below the textbook for the grade on purpose. A reader is not a lesson. Its job is to be finished, and to be finished comfortably, because a child who completes a whole story in English thinks something different about themselves afterwards.
What makes a rebus story work is that the child is never stranded. When an unfamiliar word arrives it is a picture, so the sentence keeps moving. The word is learned in the middle of a story rather than in a list.
How to use one
Ten minutes is enough. These are not a lesson and should not become one.
Let the child read it aloud, pictures and all
When they reach a picture they say the word. If they do not know it, tell them at once and move on - do not make them guess at length, which is the fastest way to turn reading into a test.
Read it a second time
The second reading is where fluency comes from. It will be noticeably faster than the first, and the child will hear the difference themselves.
Then press Show the words
The pictures turn into the written words. Read it once more. The child has now met each new word in a sentence they already understand, which is the whole point.
Talk about it
Each story has two or three questions at the end. Ask them in English if the child can manage, in the first language if not. Understanding the story matters more than answering in English.
Choose a grade
Five stories in each. If a child struggles with their own grade, drop down one - nothing here says which grade it is on the page itself.
Grade 3
Three to six words a sentence. This is my… It is… I like… My ball, my garden, my school bag, the market, my family.
Grade 4
There is… There are… and I am going… A rainy day, helping father, the bus to school, our classroom, the kite.
Grade 5
The past tense arrives. The dry well, the temple lamp, the cricket match, the peacock, grandmother's medicine.
Grade 6
Longer sentences and some conversation. The last bus, the tailor's shop, saving the pond, the solar lamp, the postman.
For teachers: why the pictures are not decoration
A picture in place of a word does something a picture beside the text cannot. It sits in the grammar of the sentence, so the child has to work out what kind of word belongs there before they name it - and that is reading, not guessing from a picture.
It also keeps the sentence moving. A second-language reader who stops at an unknown word usually loses the whole sentence; here there is nothing to stop at.