The Graphic Alphabet

Bibliographic Information: Pelletier, D. (1996). The graphic alphabet. New York, New York: Orchard Books, Inc.

Annotation: An alphabet book using creative and unusual illustrations to show the meaning of the words it highlights.

Genre: Alphabet Book

Grade Level: K-5

Readers Who Will Like This Book: Readers of all ages

Personal Response and Rating: I rate this book a 4. I found this book creative and unusual in its approach with the alphabets as well as the illustrations.

Prereading Question: The children would be asked to close their eyes and tell me what picture comes to mind when I say a word, such as "party" or "slide".

Reading Strategies Connection:

A. Reading Strategy - Picture Packets

B. Description of Strategy - Students are given a packet of pictures that directly relate to the book being read.

C. Rationale - The graphic nature of the book lends itself to this strategy using pictures to help develop students' prior knowledge of certain words and actions. Pairing a photographic image with the letter the word begins with will help students see the relationship between the author's choice of pairing a picture with a letter as well as seeing the letter within the graphic image itself.