Wordless (or nearly wordless) picturebooks are intriguing in terms of how readers make meaning from them. This article offers a conceptualisation of existing studies in the field of education that use wordless picturebooks with young readers. While some of these studies contribute to understanding meaning-making, the pragmatic use of wordless picturebooks often does not take account of their particular nature and of the heightened role of the reader, leading to a mismatch between what the picturebook expects from the implied reader and the researchers' expectations of what 'real' readers must do with these books. By highlighting observations from children's literature scholarship and reader-response studies, this article aims to encourage a more interdisciplinary understanding of meaning-making. It also seeks to persuade educational researchers and mediators to consider investigative approaches that are not based on verbalization but are more in tune with the invitations that wordless picturebooks extend to young readers.
Literacies in Homes and Communities 11 that are connected to stories, the process of recognition of those practices is more complex. Since home literacies are often embedded within multilingual scripts, craft activities, computer games, television programs, and oral stories it is important to widen the lens through which to recognize home literacy practices. A multidisciplinary lens is required to do that important work. We argue, in this review, for a bringing together of a lens that challenges contemporary 'tropes' of home literacy practices (for example, book sharing) and widens the scope of the ways in which home literacies are recognized so that this potential can be carried into the wider domains of school, workplace and community.
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