Running Head: PRESCHOOL PICTURE BOOKS AND VOCABULARY

Preschool Picture Books and Vocabulary

Emily DeGrange
Franciscan University of Steubenville

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Introduction
The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more
places you'll go. Dr. Seuss
Reading to children is no new literacy campaign. Libraries, schools, parent magazines,
and endless other sources have advocated for the use of childrens books in the classroom for
many years. As traditional classroom read-alouds are being replaced with standards based
educational practices, teachers are reading less and less to their students. Technology is replacing
quality literature and students are being exposed less and less to the direct benefits of picture
books. According to a study done in 2009 about how often teachers read aloud to students, a
disturbing 76% of teachers were found to be reading picture books to their students only once a
day (Gonena, Durmusoglu & Severcana, 2009, p. 756). One of the biggest benefits to reading
picture books aloud is the idea that students will be exposed to new words and ideas to hopefully
build up their schemas about the world and make meaning out of life.
Purpose
Picture books have always been a part of a complete pre-kindergarten education, but they
are often underappreciated and taken for granted. Picture books are one of the most effective
ways to support a childs oral language development. Sadly enough, in a study done on teacher
trends on classroom read-alouds, only 19.7% of teachers read books to their students explicitly to
support language development (Gonena, Durmusoglu & Severcana, 2009, p. 755). Many people
have the attitude that picture books are a time waster in the classroom and are purely for
entertainment. This is a grossly inaccurate statement as the National Institute for Literacy states
that sharing stories is one of the main ways that parents and teachers can help develop a childs

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oral language (Goodson & Layzer, 2009, p. 10). If vocabulary then is so intimately connected
with oral language, are picture books effective in teaching students new vocabulary words?
To study this question, I will read a picture storybook to several different preschool
classrooms. I will create a Picture Naming (PN) test with five of the pictures from the picture
storybook. The pictures chosen will be the pictures that are not extremely common and wellknown by preschool students to hopefully encourage the acquisition of new vocabulary. Before
and after reading, I will administer the PN test as an informal assessment to the entire preschool
class and record the exact answers that the students give. I will record the raw data that the
students provided in their answers to the PN test and then I will then compare the answers of
what the students thought the pictures were before reading the book to what the students thought
the pictures were after the read aloud.
Through the students answers about the pictures from the picture book, I hope to
discover that the students will be able to name more of the pictures after reading the book than
before. I predict that there will positive correlation between picture book readings and the
acquisition of new vocabulary. If the students have visual pictures to associate with the words
that they are audibly hearing, than they will have a greater understand of the meaning of those
words.
Reviews of Literature
One of the most important concepts to grasp for any educator is scaffolding in the
classroom. This is how children learn. Scaffolding is the concept of taking what a child already
knows and using that knowledge as a starting point from which to teach new material. Masseys
(2013) article about book reading and play and its impact on vocabulary and language
development uses scaffolding as the basis for its argument. This article focuses on the preschool

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classroom and the preschool teachers implementation of books to create a literacy-rich

classroom. The scaffolding is especially apparent when reading picture books because the
storybooks take ideas and themes that the children are familiar with and introduces new
vocabulary to accompany the existing schemas children already possess about different themes
found in the storybooks. The four levels of language ranging from the concrete to the abstract are
also broken down in the article and related to storybook readings. Specific examples of questions
and statements the teacher can make while reading the book are provided to demonstrate to
teachers how to utilize all four levels of language with the preschool students. Reading aloud
storybooks in a classroom enhances oral language by creating a vocabulary-rich environment.
Guided play is the topic of the second half of the article in which examples of vocabulary and
questions from the scaffolded storybook readings are incorporated into the students creative
play. The article suggested that teachers need to be more involved in the preschool classroom.
Adults should be encouraging and providing opportunities for higher-level thinking in the form
of constructive conversations sparked by storybooks and guided play. These strategies will help
to increase the overall literacy performance of students in the class and take oral language
development to the next level.
This article was a goldmine for me in my research process! I absolutely loved the
connections the article made between storybooks and higher-level thinking and speaking. Many
people feel that preschool children are only capable of completing easy tasks and that preschool
is only a place for play and socialization. I love how this article debunks that myth by stating that
preschool students are very capable of abstract thinking and learning new advanced vocabulary
through the use of scaffolding. Picture books are not just a time-waster or something to use for
transition periods of the day. Reading books aloud in the classroom is a wonderful way, as

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previously stated, to help students learn new vocabulary and expand and build on their existing
ideas of the world. One thing I did not like about this article is that there were not too many
examples. Without the background knowledge of scaffolding from my personal education
classes, I would have probably found this article difficult to understand as it used a lot of
academic vocabulary. This article is pivotal to me in my personal research because it provides
clear strategies and benefits of using storybooks in the classroom and ways picture books
explicitly tie to oral language. My research is all about oral language development in relation to
the amount of read-alouds that students experience in their education. One addition I would like
to see made to this article is to see some numbers and empirical data integrated into the research.
Having evidence-based research on the idea of scaffolding storybooks for vocabulary building
and schema expansion will hopefully encourage more teachers to utilize the practice of readalouds accompanying guided play. Read-aloud strategies would be a wonderful addition to
existing preschool programs and encourage children in a fun and appealing way to learn more
about the world around them while developing their oral language.
The National Institute for Literacy wanted to create a resource for parents, educators and
anyone else who works with young children to help them understand how a childs oral language
develops and to give them specific strategies to develop the childs oral language even further.
Goodson, Layzer and the National Institute for L. (2009) created the resource by first breaking
down the development of oral language by age group and explaining what is happening with the
childs oral language at each stage. Afterwards, the rest of the resource explains explicit
strategies and ways to talk to a young child to help scaffold their oral language by building on
the ideas the child already possesses about the world around them. This oral language resource
also has a large section on the importance of reading and how it directly influences oral language

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development by introducing new ideas and a broad vocabulary to the student. Finishing off the
article is a comprehensive and concise tool kit of strategies for anyone to implement which all
help to build and strengthen a childs oral language development.
One thing I especially love about this particular resource from the National Center for
Literacy is that it can be easily used and understood by any person whether or not they have a
background in pedagogical knowledge. One of the best features of the article is the oral language
development checklist found at the end of the resource. The checklist makes it easy for educators
to have a guide to easily implement small strategies everyday into the classroom. This article was
written in a semi-informal tone without very much technical jargon. While this makes it easier
for the average person without an education background to understand, I did not like how there
was no technical data. I wish there would have been more information on the actual processes of
oral language in the brain instead of general terms for what the child is going through. This
article will be very helpful to me in my research because there is an entire section of this guide
published by the National Institute of Literacy on reading and its direct impact on oral language
development. This research will further cement and confirm my hypothesis. One improvement
that I think could be made to this article is more information on oral language development for
babies. The article only has a sentence or two each on the oral language development of very
young children. I think it would helpful to have the oral language strategies separated by age so
parents and teachers would have specific strategies to implement with children of specific ages.
When researching any topic in the education field it is important not to forget the
teachers! The statistics in the informational article by Gonena, Durmusoglu, and Severcana
(2009) contain research regarding early childhood teacher perspectives and the use of picture
book readings in the classroom. The authors of the article sent out questionnaires and personal

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information sheets to hundreds of kindergarten and nursery teachers throughout the country of
Turkey where the study was conducted. The study asked how often teachers read with their
students in their classroom as well why teachers felt they should read to their students. The
questionnaire also went into detail about teachers opinions about the types of books available to
students and the type of literacy activities used to encourage independent reading habits in
students. The data was complied into lots of charts and tables which showed each idea broken
down into number of teachers who held a certain opinion and the percentage of the total teachers
who answered one way or another to each question. The findings from the study revealed that
most teachers only read to their students once a day. This is not sufficient for an effective
literacy-based education. Teachers generally feel that improvements could be made to childrens
books in the nature of their style and aesthetic appeal to the students. The questionnaire
responses also revealed that teachers do not take their students to the library enough and that
public libraries are hardly ever used. The conclusion stated by the authors of the study was that
many teachers are not given adequate training in childrens literature and that picture book
readings need to be used more frequently in the elementary classroom.
Many people go straight to the educational experts with PhDs to find the information they
want to know about education, yet they forget who the real experts of the classroom are. The
empirical research is, for obvious reasons, extremely valuable because it is this evidence-based
research that holds fast and gives teachers the tools to use the most effective methods. For my
specific research on vocabulary development and picture books, I wanted to be sure to find out
how teachers feel and if they are reading to their students in class. This professional article is a
perfect study for me to use because it analyzes teachers personal opinions on picture book trends
and the amount of picture book reading that occurs in the average preschool classroom. Teacher

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attitude is shown time and time again to be a main motivator for students in the classroom. If
teachers have a negative perspective on a certain strategy, than so will their students. This article
effectively included visual lists and charts which broke down the various opinions on reading
and showed exactly how many teachers felt a certain way towards picture books. The article was
very straightforward and easy to understand. One negative aspect of this article was that the main
source of evidence for the study was from a teacher self-answered questionnaire. Because it was
self-reported, the data could be skewed or incorrect. I think in future studies, teachers should be
observed in addition to answering the personal questionnaire.
The Magic of Words by Neuman and Wright (2014) discusses the importance of
vocabulary instruction for the young child. The article began by talking about the changes in
educational instruction that have been surfacing due to the implementation of the Common Core
State Standards (CCSS). CCSS calls for an increase in informational and media-based text
sources which drastically changes the traditional method of vocabulary instruction based solely
on print texts. The article goes on to debunk several myths about vocabulary instruction
including that children naturally pick up a slew of new words without explicit instruction and
that simply mentioning words through a picture book or within a lesson is sufficient for students
to retain the words. After discussing the myths and the things that do not work in vocabulary
instruction, the authors of the article go on to state the principles that have found to be especially
effective due to evidence-based research that they found through over 70 studies on vocabulary
instruction. One essential principle they found to be true is: students need both implicit and
explicit vocabulary instruction. Also, students need to be instructed with words multiple times in
order for vocabulary words to stick in the brain. The article concludes with concrete research on
the authors ideas on vocabulary instruction. Students are taught vocabulary words using the

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principles outlined in the article. The students taught with the research-based methods of
vocabulary instruction are then compared to students in a control group who were not taught
with the vocabulary principles explored by the authors. Several graphs are given to illustrate the
research conducted and the data found. This article argues for the importance of vocabulary
instruction in the elementary classroom.
The Magic of Words immediately caught my eye because of its focus on the necessity of
vocabulary instruction in the classroom. My research hypothesis focuses on the development of
oral language through implicit vocabulary instruction in the preschool classroom using picture
books. The first piece of research stated right at the beginning of The Magic of Words that
immediately caught my eye was that preschool is the time in a childs life where they have the
fastest rate of vocabulary acquisition (Neuman & Wright, 2014, p. 4). It is imperative that
students even as young as preschool are taught new words. Many preschools do not teach
vocabulary and instead focus on letters and fine motor skills. I love how this article tears down
the myths associated with vocabulary instruction. I only wish that there would have been more
discussion of specific strategies. I think that one downfall of this article that it was quite vague
on what specific strategies can be used in the classroom. The article would make claims such as
saying that students needed specific explicit instruction but would give very general examples of
what explicit instruction looks like. The teacher was not given any tools to aid their endeavors in
vocabulary instruction. To add to this article, I believe it should have a few more tips and tricks
and practical suggestions for teachers in the classroom. This article also discusses the importance
of both explicit and implicit instruction of vocabulary in the classroom. Though my research is
not specifically covering the explicit vocabulary instruction, I am studying the effects of implicit
vocabulary instruction on oral language development. It is very heartening to see such a

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wonderful article about the importance of vocabulary instruction in the classroom even in the
implicit sense. It shows that I am studying important evidence-based concepts in the classroom.
Methodology
For the primary research portion of my project, I chose to conduct the research myself. To
study the impact of picture book reading on preschool students vocabulary and oral language
development, I completed a read-aloud with the students. I conducted a Picture Naming (PN) test
with students in preschool classrooms both before and after the read-aloud and recorded their
answers to the PN test both times.
I chose to read the book Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle to
each preschool classroom in my study. I chose to read this particular book because I wanted to
find a book that would be developmentally appropriate and not too long so as to cater to the short
attention span of preschool students. This book is centered on animals, which is a central
relatable theme to students that usually appeals to student interest as well.
I visited nine different preschool classrooms throughout the duration of my research. I
chose to visit preschool classrooms because, according to research done by Kurt Beron and
George Farkas, the preschool age group is the time when a person has the highest rate of learning
new vocabulary words (2004, p. 491). Because this is the most crucial age for a persons oral
language development, I chose to make preschool students (students aged 3-5) my target group.
In each of the nine preschool classrooms I visited, I conducted a Picture Naming (PN)
test with the students which consisted of five pictures. All five of the pictures in the test were
animal pictures copied right from Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? Before reading
the book, I showed the students the five picture cards and asked them what animals they saw on
the cards. I gave the PN test informally to the entire class and either called on random students or

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listened to the answers the students shouted out. I recorded the answer(s) the students gave for
each picture card and then read the book aloud showing the students the illustrations and
occasionally asking the students interactive questions about the animals in the book (ex. Does
anyone have a pet turtle?, What do you think a spider monkey will look like? etc.). After the
picture book reading, I gave the students the same PN test that I had administered before reading
the book. I did not prompt the students into the correct answer or asked them to try again if I
knew they identified the picture wrong. I simply held the pictures up and recorded whatever the
students said in response to the picture prompts.
For this study, I found a Picture Naming test to be the most effective form of testing the
students vocabulary acquisition and oral language development from the picture book reading.
The PN test was easy to create and easy to administer effectively to a large group of students. It
was also important to be sure that the methods I was using to test the vocabulary and oral
language were researched and evidenced-based. According to research done in 2014 about the
most effective measures by which to test Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDIs)
on oral language, the Picture Naming test was found to be the most effective and resulting in the
most accurate data for measuring oral language development (Bradfield, et al. 2014, p. 242).
Findings
After completing my study with preschool students, in addition to support from other
professional research, I have found that picture books do increase students acquisition of new
vocabulary words. Out of the 9 preschools I read to, 8 out of the 9 preschools learned at least one
new animal word from the whole class read-aloud of the picture book. Before reading the book, I
administered the first whole class PN test to each classroom. The highest percentage of correct
words that any class got right before the book was read was 40% of the pictures (2 out of the 5

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Preschool Class Number

Class 1
Class 2
Class 3
Class 4
Class 5
Class 6
Class 7
Class 8
Class 9

Number of
answers correct
BEFORE reading
2
1
0
1
1
1
2
1
2

12

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13

6
5
4
3

# of answers correct
before reading

# of answers correct after

reading

1
0

Preschool Class Number

words). When the PN test was administered
again after the picture book reading, all of
the classes scored at least one word higher
on the PN test with the exception of one
class who scored the same on the PN test
both before and after the picture book

Class 1
Class 2
Class 3
Class 4
Class 5
Class 6
Class 7
Class 8
Class 9

Number of
answers correct
AFTER reading
5
3
1
4
2
5
5
4
2

reading.
Combining the words with the pictures gives students who are visual learners a visual
representation of the new word introduced through the language of the story. Picture book
readings are a way to connect literacy to language and allow teachers to build a childs existing
vocabulary through scaffolding language using pictures books. Students are introduced through
Figure 1 Student Number of Correct Answers

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picture books to mature concepts and words of higher level thinking that are not usually in the
realm of typical preschool conversations (Massey, 2013, p. 125).
As I was doing my research there was one very interesting phenomena that I noticed
while completing the Picture Naming test with the students. Every time I completed the test with
a class of students, all of the
answers followed a pattern. Whether correct or incorrect,
Fig. 2 Water Buffalo Picture Card

each answer given by the students was logical to the picture

presented. For example, when I showed the picture of the
water buffalo to the students, all of the students answered
with an answer that fit the picture. Because most students
have no concept of the water buffalo animal, they looked at

the picture and tried to figure out what they knew about the animal pictured and what traits it had
that matched traits that other animals had that they already knew about. When looking at the
picture of the water buffalo, each class I visited gave one of four answers before reading the
book on the PN test: a moose, a yak, a bull or a deer. All four of these answers make logical
sense. The water buffalo has horns that look like those on a bull and a yak. This big brown
animal with horns on its head can also be compared to a buck with antlers which accounts for the
moose and deer answers. All four of these animals make logical sense considering not one
student had prior knowledge of water buffaloes. 5 out of the 9 preschool classes answered this
picture correctly on the PN test after the book was read aloud. Those who did not answer this
correctly still gave an answer within the range of logic for this picture. I started to realize that
this fascinating function of a childs brain tries to make up for a lack of knowledge by sorting
new information learned into categories of preexisting ideas found in the brain.

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This observation I made from the Picture Naming test answers led me to research on the
schema theory. The schema theory is the belief that new knowledge is connected to related
ideas one already knows (Reutzel & Cooter, 2012, p. 36). This follows from the idea that people
make meaning out of new things that they discover. The new knowledge anyone learns is built
off of something that person already believes and knows to be true. When someone encounters
something they have never experienced before, their brain will try and make sense of the new
information by connecting it to words already known (Reutzel & Cooter, 2012, p. 36).
Traditionally, the schema theory has been used to organize cultural processes into series of
thoughts and ideas (McVee, Dunsmore, & Gavelek, 2005, p. 536). Organizing ideas into
compartments helps the brain to be at peace with all of the knowledge inside of itself and bring
order to the chaos that learning can be.
Piaget was one of the first theorists to define schemas and develop the schema theory. In
accord with his theory, when a person encountered a new idea, they did either one of two things
with it. They either assimilated that idea into one of their existing schemas or they changed the
schemas to fit the new idea (McVee, Dunsmore, & Gavelek, 2005, p. 536). This idea would

List of Picture Naming Student Answers and Frequency of Answers* Schema Theory
BEFORE READING
Water Buffalo
Moose - 5
Bull - 4
Yak - 1
Deer - 1

Sea Lion
Otter - 1
Dolphin - 4
Whale - 1
Fish - 3
Penguin - 1
Walrus - 1
Shark - 2
Manta Ray - 1

Bald Eagle
Eagle - 8
Bird - 1
Hawk - 1

Whooping Crane
Eagle - 2
Bird - 6
Seagull - 1
Red Wolf
Pony - 1
Fox - 2
Wolf - 3
Bear - 1
Cow - 1
Dog - 1
Horse - 3
Coyote - 1

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*Number of classes answered out of 9

Highlighted answer = most responded answer(s)
Figure 3 Student Answers

make sense when looking at the answers the students gave for the PN test. Before the test, the
students were given pictures with no instruction on what the pictures were. They tried to put the
picture into an existing box for an animal they already had knowledge about. Referring back to
the water buffalo example previously mentioned one can see that before reading the students
tried to fit the picture of the water buffalo into an existing schema they had for a large brown
four-legged animal with large protruding bone structures off of the head, which for most students
was a moose. A moose makes sense because a moose is a common animal seen wildly in the
woods, while a bull and a yak are usually found on ranches or in zoo facilities exclusively.
Looking at the other sets of student answers listed in Fig. 3, one would notice that all of
the answers for the Sea Lion card all are water animals that swim. This is important to note out
because regardless of what animal the students chose to say for the Picture Naming test, all
students recognized that the blue creature with a tail and fins was an animal who resided in the
sea. This is a prime example of students assimilating new ideas into existing schemas.
Another noteworthy finding from the PN test data is that an overwhelming 8 of the 9
preschool classes who participated in the study answered the eagle picture card correctly on the
before reading the book. The observation lines up with the schema theory because of the eagles
significance in American culture. The bald eagle has come to be one of the most prominent and
recognizable symbols of United States iconography. The majority of U.S. citizens already have a
preexisting knowledge of the eagle because of its commonality as a United States symbol of

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freedom and democracy. This animal did not need to be fit into an existing schema because it
was not new knowledge for most students. Most students already understood what an eagle was
and thus already had a schema for it in their brain.
In conclusion, I have found that picture books have a positive correlation with vocabulary
acquisition. Combining the pictures and the words of picture storybooks helps students to build
their existing ideas of the world and expand their previous knowledge. Students are introduced to
new concepts through the themes found within the storybooks. These new concepts build their
existing schemas of the world and help them to assimilate new concepts into preexisting ways of
thinking as well as expand those previous ways of thinking with new ideas. As seen in my data,
students are found to learn new words when introduced to them with pictures. The pictures give
the students a visual to associate with the new words which will help students to remember the
words with ease because of the visual association. Reading picture storybooks to young children
is extremely important. Never in their life again will these students have the brain capacity to
learn so many new words in short amount of time. Being aware of this critical point in a childs
cognitive development, teachers need to be aware of the ways that they are building up a childs
oral language and thus preparing them for a literacy-based future.
Recommendations
The natural logical expansion from this project would be to complete research on the
schema theory and its impact on vocabulary. While I have referenced this theory in my research,
my study was primarily focused on the effect of reading picture books on a childs vocabulary
acquisition rate. My studies only focused on a narrow aspect of student learning. I read to the
children, I administered a Picture Naming test, and I recorded their answers as data. Even though
many different literacy organizations continue to promote literacy and picture book reading to

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young children, there is not a lot of available current research on picture books and their concrete
effects on young children. Researchers should expand on the picture book topic and continue to
research specific topics related to the impact of picture books on different aspects of a childs
literacy development.
To expand specifically on my research regarding picture books and vocabulary
development, it would be effective to increase the sample size of children studied as well as read
more than one book to the students in the study. Reading only one book with the accompanying
PN test is not enough to obtain the most accurate data. Even though the students making up the
nine preschool classes in my study constituted a significant number of participants, obtaining
more data would only ensure a more accurate result. Researchers could expand further on this
study by completing an in-depth schema analysis on the student answers to discover how and
why students integrated answers into mental schemas. Researchers could analyze and record how
many students answered with a specific answer to find the average schema that students tried to
integrate the new answers into.
My research was limited because of the small sample size and limited resources I used
for the study. I was only able to visit a few preschools that were all mostly in the same regional
and demographic area. In reality, this study would have been more accurate if administered to
preschools across the country and to preschools with a variety of demographic and
developmental levels. Because of time constraints I was only able to administer the PN test to the
class as a whole. If I was to have unlimited time and resources, I would have given the PN test to
individual students chosen at random before and after the picture book read aloud. By assessing
individual students, the data would be more accurate because the answers would have been from
randomly selected students instead of polling from the class as a whole.

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This study was able to open my eyes and mind to a fraction of the positive effects of
picture books on young children. This snapshot of research is just one small way that picture
books are useful in the classroom. My research correlating picture books to positive vocabulary
and oral language development should spark interest in future researchers to take this data and
expand on it creating new avenues of research and further discovering the power and of the
young brain. This research gives educators practical tools and strategies to help further develop
and expand a childs oral language and vocabulary development.

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References
Bradfield, T. A., Besner, A. C., Wackerle-Hollman, A. K., Albano, A. D., Rodriguez, M. C., &
McConnell, S. R. (2014). Redefining individual growth and development indicators: Oral
language. Assessment for Effective Intervention, 39(4), 233-244.
Farkas, G., & Beron, K. (2004). The detailed age trajectory of oral vocabulary knowledge:
Differences by class and race, Social Science Research, 33(3), 464-497.
Gonena, M., Durmusoglu, M., & Severcana, S. (2009). Examining the views of preschool
education teachers on the content, illustrations and physical characteristics of the picture
story books used in education. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 1(1), 753-759.
Goodson, B., Layzer, C., & National Institute for, L. (2009). Learning to Talk and Listen: An
Oral Language Resource for Early Childhood Caregivers. National Institute for Literacy.
Massey, S. L. (2013). From the reading rug to the play center: Enhancing vocabulary and
comprehensive language skills by connecting storybook reading and guided play. Early
Childhood Education Journal, 41(2), 125-131.
McVee, M., Dunsmore, K., & Gavelek, J. (2005). Schema theory revisited. Review of
Educational Research, 75(4), 531-566.
Neuman, S. B., & Wright, T. S. (2014). The Magic of words: Teaching vocabulary in the early
childhood classroom. American Educator, 38(2), 4-13.
Reutzel, D., & Cooter, Jr., R. (2012). Teaching children to read: The teacher makes the
difference (6th ed.). Pearson.
Tal, C., & Segal-Drori, O. (2014). Student teachers' implementation and understanding of
repeated picture-book reading in preschools. Australian Journal Of Teacher
Education, 40(1), 14-35.

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Raw Data
Appendix A Picture Naming (PN) Test
Correct Answers:
Picture 1: Water Buffalo

Picture 2: Sea Lion

Picture 3: Whooping Crane

Picture 4: Bald Eagle

Picture 5: Red Wolf

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Appendix B Preschool Class (PN) Test Answers
Good News Preschool:
Test 1 (Before Reading):
1. Moose
2. Otter
3. Eagle
4. Eagle
5. Wolf

Test 2 (After Reading):

1. Water Buffalo
2. Sea Lion
3. Whooping Crane
4. Eagle
5. Red Wolf

East Elementary: (Class 1)

Test 1:
1. Moose
2. Dolphin, whale, fish
3. Eagle
4. Eagle
5. Pony, coyote

Test: 2
1. Moose
2. Sea Lion
3. Whooping Eagle
4. Eagle
5. Red Wolf

East Elementary: (Class 2)

Test 1:
1. Moose
2. Fish
3. Bird
4. Bird, hawk
5. Horsey, bear

Test: 2
1. Moose
2. Sea, fish
3. Bird
4. Bird
5. Wolf

Hills Elementary: (Class 1)

Test 1:
1. Moose
2. Dolphin, fish
3. Bird
4. Eagle
5. Dog

Test 2:
1. Buffalo
2. Lion
3. Whooped Cream
4. Eagle
5. Wolf

Hills Elementary: (Class 2)

Test 1:
1. Bull
2. Penguin
3. Bird
4. Eagle
5. Cow

Test 2:
1. Bull
2. Sea Turtle
3. Whooping Cream
4. Eagle
5. Red wolf, cow

Hills Elementary: (Class 3)

Test 1:
1. Bull, yak
2. Walrus

Test 2:
1. Water bull, water buffalo
2. Sea lion

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PRESCHOOL PICTURE BOOKS AND VOCABULARY

3. Seagull
4. Eagle
5. Horse

3. Whooping crane
4. Eagle
5. Red Wolf

Hills Elementary: (Class 4)

Test 1:
1. Bull
2. Shark
3. Bird
4. Eagle
5. Wolf, horse

Test 2:
1. Water buffalo
2. Sea lion
3. Bird, whooping bird, whooping crane
4. Bird, eagle
5. Wolf, red wolf

Weirton Elementary: (Class 1)

Test 1:
1. Bull
2. Manta ray, dolphin, shark
3. Bird
4. Eagle
5. Fox

Test 2:
1. Water Buffalo
2. Shark, sea lion, kangaroo
3. Whooping crane
4. Eagle
5. Red fox

Weirton Elementary: (Class 2)

Test 1:
1. Moose, deer
2. Dolphin
3. Bird
4. Eagle
5. Wolf, fox

Test 2:
1. Deer
2. Sea tiger
3. Bird
4. Eagle
5. Red wolf, fox

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