Illustrations help children to interpret and see information in visual form. They can also help kids understand the characters’ feelings and emotions as described in the text and depicted in the illustrations.
Several studies have shown that illustrations enhance story recall for young preschoolers. However, these studies did not include a within-person comparison of parent and child story-reading behavior.
They are a feast for the senses.
A good book for young children has illustrations on every page that enrich the story and help with word recognition. The visual experience of a colorful, well-designed illustration is a crucial component of early literacy. It can promote emotional development, help kids name their feelings, and build critical cognitive skills.
When cultivating a love for reading in young minds, parents often turn to an illustrated children’s book, creating an engaging and visually stimulating experience that fosters a lifelong appreciation for literature.
Drawing, sculpting with clay, and threading beads on string are ways for young children to develop visual-spatial skills. These skills are essential for understanding spatial relationships, patterning, and cause and effect (i.e., if you push hard on the crayon, the color will be darker).
Previous research has found that young preschoolers do not benefit from story illustrations accompanying pre-recorded stories. However, it hypothesized that illustrations might encourage parent-child interactive story reading behaviors known to predict improved literacy outcomes. Parents and children in the Illustrated condition interacted more during story reading than the Non-Illustrated group. They recalled the story more accurately and with greater detail than those in the Non-Illustrated group.
They clarify and elaborate on the text.
Illustrations help to clarify and elaborate on the text. They also enable children to find meaning that is not explicitly stated in the words of the story. For example, a picture of a boy playing with his dad might reveal his father pretending to be a lion. Children can then read between the lines and interpret the visual clues to understand the text.
In contrast, some research has suggested that illustrations may distract beginning readers by causing them to look away from the printed text and focus on extraneous details. This can lead to encoding irrelevant details into working memory and disrupt the story’s coherence, resulting in poor reading comprehension.
However, studies using a controlled, interactive story-reading context have found that illustrations significantly enhance children’s memories of stories. In these studies, parents and children commented more about the story and its content in the Illustrated condition than in the Non-Illustrated condition.
They help children to read between the lines.
In the very early years of childhood, children perceive their world in a non-abstractive way. This is why illustrations in kids’ educational books are so important. They help them understand concepts like patterning and cause and effect and make it easier to memorize things. Illustrations also help kids with cognitive behavior and reasoning skills, such as comparing objects and making connections.
The present study used a within-subject design with a commercially available book with illustrations (Standard condition) and an identical book without illustrations (Streamlined condition). Children were randomly assigned to read one of the two conditions. Experts found that reading the Standard condition caused children to shift their gaze to extraneous illustrations more than the Streamlined condition. This is a concern because prior research has found that looking away from text during reading negatively affects reading comprehension in beginning readers.
It remains to be explored whether removing these extraneous illustration details can mitigate these effects on children’s reading comprehension. Furthermore, it would be interesting to see how parental expressiveness in the story reading context might influence these results, as such behaviors predict child story retelling and other literacy outcomes.
They help children to name their emotions.
Children need to practice labeling their emotions. They learn best through plenty of repetition. This is especially important before feelings get too intense. Identifying and naming their emotions is a vital life skill, whether they’re smiles at happy characters in a book, tears over sad stories, or cries over a dinosaur with gaping jaws.
One way to help students recognize their feelings. Another way is playing games that encourage recognition of their feelings, like this emoji card game or this board game. You can also use clear acrylic photo cubes with drawings of faces expressing different emotions on each side to play a “feeling dice” activity with your students.
Another great way to encourage emotional identification is by making paper plate feeling faces with skin tone paint. Children can then act out the feeling while other kids guess what they might be feeling. It’s a fun way to build vocabulary and social skills.
Leave a Reply