Picture Books as Mentor Texts for 10th Grade Struggling Writers

Abstract

, 2000). Students were taught from an inquiry-based approach as the teacher read aloud each book, and asked students what they noticed. Students reviewed the picture books to guide them as they were challenged to improve their writing. Findings from the study illustrate that picture books as mentor texts can help secondary students of all ability levels improve their word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions in narrative writing as measured by a writing trait rubric created by Vicki Spandel and adapted by Jim Burke. Picture books were tools that helped students think and act like writers. Conclusions also highlighted the lack of word choice and sentence fluency instruction in the students' formative years. This study shed light on the abstract nature of sentence fluency, and an effective way to mitigate this problem. This study provided a new angle with which to teach the writing traits through narrative composition instruction, and teacher modeling. Further, this study adds to the literature of effective high school instruction as picture books as mentor texts are less common in the high school English Language Arts classroom.

Picture Book: Its Effect on EFL Reading Comprehension

“…The finding of this study indicating the effect of using picture book for teaching supports previous research [12][13][14]. Besides, the students who were treated with picture book were more active and easy to understand the stories because the presence of pictures encourages students to know the meaning of the text.…”

The Effect of Teaching Picture-books on Iranian Elementary EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Learning

“…Picture books are multifaceted and can enhance motivation in the learning process and can be used to integrate aspects of multiple curricula for intermediate and secondary students (Massey, 2015). For example, Premont, Young, Wilcox, Dean, and Morrison (2017) explored the used use of picture books in a high school setting to improve students' word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions in narrative writing. The tenth-grade student participants in Premont et al's study used the "picture books as coaches" (Premont et al, 2017).…”

“…For example, Premont, Young, Wilcox, Dean, and Morrison (2017) explored the used use of picture books in a high school setting to improve students' word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions in narrative writing. The tenth-grade student participants in Premont et al's study used the "picture books as coaches" (Premont et al, 2017). The results shared a significant increase in their performance and in their writing skills after the implementation of picture books into their curriculum.…”

The Asian Conference on Education 2022: Official Conference Proceedings

“…English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' writing accuracy is greatly improved when the mentor text teaching model is used in a writing class (Ghorbanchian, Youhanaee & Amirian, 2019;Liaghat & Biria, 2018;Tabrizi, 2017). Premont, Young, Wilcox, Dean, and Morrison (2017) found that with the use of mentor texts, high school students not only enhance their writing abilities, namely word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions, but also improve self-efficacy in writing. Students' writing interests, motivation to write, and From the Sentence Level to the Paragraph Level.…”