Young children notice and make use of illustrations in picture books as they read independently as evidenced by statements such as this one from Sarah's retelling of "The Wolf's Chicken Stew": "He couldn't catch him; so he did like this (child folds arms across chest) against the tree". Scholars in the field of children's literature have long viewed illustrations as an important part of picture books that contribute as much to the development of story as the verbal text (Genette, 1997; Golden & Gerber, 1990; Higonnet, 1990). In this example, Sarah not only noted the illustration, she also connected it to previous verbal and visual text to conclude that the reason the wolf leaned against the tree with his arms folded was because he couldn't catch the chicken. Thus Sarah used the visual and verbal texts conjointly to construct meaning. In this article, the authors share their observations of the multiple ways illustrations were used by six third grade children as they read "The Wolf's Chicken Stew" by Keiko Kasza (1987) and how illustrations contributed to both oral reading and understanding. (Contains 4 figures.)