Why picture books?
Picture books cover a diverse range of topics, expose children to words and language they might not hear normally in conversation, and teach children how reading works (left to right, top to bottom). In this narrative style, the illustrations work with the text so children can ‘read’ the story for themselves before they understand the individual words and decode the text. Picture books are also useful vehicles for introducing sensitive subjects or talking about values.

While picture books might be too hard for early readers to read by themselves at first, the books are not too hard to understand. Reading picture books with your child will inspire them to learn to read on their own and experience the pleasure of reading.

In addition to the Putto Press books collection, published by MultiLit, MultiLit offers a curated collection of high-quality children’s literature from Australian and international authors. These engaging books offer rich and diverse vocabulary and cover content that aligns with the curriculum. Additionally, they provide exposure to different types of narratives such as poems or plays.

We recommend these picture books for use with PreLit, MultiLit’s early literacy preparation program, and InitiaLit, our school-based initial literacy instruction program. Books from Putto Press form the basis of lessons in LanguageLift, an oral language intervention program, and have been written to help children learn about the elements of narrative structure and language features – critical as they learn to write.