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The Importance of Pictures in Picturebooks

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Picture book

Last year while working with Book Village, I also had the opportunity to complete my postgraduate studies, with one of my papers, ‘‘Children’s literature in Education,’ looking specifically at the impact of picturebooks on young readers. This paper was interesting in so many ways, but I particularly enjoyed how much it linked with our work at Book Village. 

Roche (2015) explains that Picturebooks “are immense sources of pleasure as well as a means of sparking off an interest in reading for children who are just beginning that process.” There are so many skills that can be taught through picturebooks. It is important to note that it is not just the text in picturebooks that can spark enjoyment and learning as the pictures are just as important as the text. As Michaels and Walsh (1990) state, “Pictures and picture books are an important part of the meaning making process. Reading pictures is just as complex, perhaps more complex, than reading print: it can also be just as rewarding as reading print.”

Pictures teach important skills

As the world around us becomes more visual and complicated, students need to learn how to take meaning from all forms of information. Bull and Anstey (2007) explain that “Knowledge of print text …is still necessary, but it is no longer sufficient in a highly visual age of increasing technological innovation.” They go on to explain that “picture books are a great place to commence the study of still images” as they are familiar and accessible. 

The combination of words and pictures also support a range of skills including learning how to visualise what is happening in the story, developing imagination, helping students to decode new words, and explaining or helping them understand new vocabulary. The combination of pictures and words also help students to develop inference skills as they learn to combine clues from the text and the pictures with their own experiences to create meaning. Pictures can also help even the youngest of readers to understand the sequence of events allowing them to make sense of the story. 

Picturebooks act as mirrors and windows

Daly (2021) states that “an important function of children’s books is to provide windows into other people’s worlds; but just as importantly, they should provide mirrors of a range of children’s realities.” Books that give voice to and illustrate a range of human experiences allow readers to develop empathy for others and understanding and compassion for themselves. 

Tan (2002) explains that “the lessons we learn from studying pictures and stories are best applied to a similar study of life in general – people, places, objects, emotions, ideas and the relationships between them all.” With even the youngest of readers, pictures can help students recognise and understand emotions, help them to connect to characters and develop a sense of empathy and understanding for experiences that are not their own. 

Pictures increase enjoyment 

Regardless of how incredibly beneficial it is for students to learn how to gain meaning from pictures, the best part about pictures is that they add to the enjoyment of the reader. Michaels and Walsh (1990) state that “when the two symbolic systems [of picture and print] work together, the satisfaction, enjoyment and stimulation is more than doubled.” We see this in every interaction our students have with their tutors, in their grins, giggles and concentration through their reading sessions. 

There are so many skills that our students are learning, practising and developing during their reading sessions. Through the support of our volunteers, our students are developing reading skills that will impact how they see themselves and the world around them for the rest of their lives. 

Written by: Eva Roding (Book Village volunteer)

Photo by Waldemar on Unsplash

References

Bull, G. & Anstey, M. (2007). Exploring visual literacy through a range of texts. Practically Primary 12(3), 4-7. 

Daly, N. (2021). Voices in the library: Curating New Zealand children’s literature. New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship, 27(1), 33-48
https://doi- org.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/10.1080/13614541.2021.1972758 

Michaels, W. & Walsh, M. (1990) Up and Away: using picture books. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Roche, M. (2015). Developing children’s critical thinking through picturebooks: a guide for primary and early years students and teachers. Routledge. 

Tan, S. (2002) Picture Books: Who are They For? Online, available at: http://www.shauntan.net/images/whypicbooks.pdf (accessed Jan 2014). 

World Book Day

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Unesco’s World Book and Copyright Day on 23rd April each year is celebrated to promote reading and the enjoyment of books everywhere.

Reading for pleasure in childhood is the biggest indicator of future success, and is more important than the parents’ educational background or income. The benefits of children reading for enjoyment include improved vocabulary,  empathy skills and mental health as well as improvements in all school subjects.

Helping children to read well enough to read for pleasure is the highest goal of Book Village. At the beginning of this year we conducted formal assessments of all the grade 2 and 3 learners at the low-income school we are working in.  Our results show that very few children are reading at the expected level for their age (about 12% in grade 2 and 8% in grade 3), and we think that we would get similar results if we tested children in most low-income schools in South Africa.

But we have noticed improvements in many areas since the beginning of the year.  Children who could read enough to start on the most simple level of the reading scheme (Aweh! By Oxford University Press) began lessons with the volunteer tutors in February this year. These children have already grown in confidence and improved their reading, vocabularies and memories. They are also getting the hang of paying attention to what they’ve been reading and thinking of creative and solid answers to the tutor’s questions.

Every time a child logs in to the Book Village app they are certain to have a motivated, patient and kind person fully devoted to helping them read for the next 20 minutes – and they love it!  The children benefit from the diversity of our volunteer tutors, their unique styles and varied takes on the story in the book.

Book Village isn’t trying to solve for a lack of books and reading material in low-income areas.  There are several organisations that do incredible work in providing books to young children. Book Dash and Nal’ibali are two great places to access free books and stories for young South African children. Instead, Book Village is about bringing the human connection back into the learning to read process by allowing every child to learn with the help of their own online tutor.

This World Book and Copyright day, consider becoming a Book Village Volunteer.  The more volunteer tutors we have, the more children we can help. Just think – while you have a 20 minute coffee break at your desk you could be teaching a child to read and develop a life-long habit of reading for enjoyment.

Looking Back at Some Holiday Reads

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It’s back to school this week and we are reminiscing on the holiday season and all the good reads. We believe that every good Christmas stocking or holiday treat should have had at least one book in it or a reasonably priced tablet to connect to the local digital library. With the holiday season coming to an end we thought we’d give you some ideas of what to read next. We asked around the house to see who’s reading what…

I’ll go first!  I’m reading Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus.  It was recommended to me by several people a while ago, and so I approached it cautiously – often cult books are a bit disappointing – but not this, and I’m enjoying it so much I don’t want it to end.  Every woman, feminist, cook, dog- lover, chemist, rower, and just everyone really, will love this book. Before this I read The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. The book is set in Cyprus and is partly narrated by the fig tree which is original and magical. The book deals with the war that occurred there in the 1970’s, the subsequent uprooting and re-settling of the characters in England and the digging up and proper burying of people killed in the war.

Two other family members are coincidentally both reading Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.  So far they both seem to be enjoying it, but then they haven’t finished it yet…  One of the girls just finished Verity by Colleen Hoover – and she’s been pestering me to read it because she really enjoyed it and couldn’t put it down.  Another’s been working her way through The 5am Club by Robin Sharma and has become a complete disciple.

Other books on the go are Bruce Whitfield’s book, The Upside of Down,  John Le Carre’s The Tailor of Panama, and another is reading The Communist Manifesto (with some good pictures to make it interesting).

We hope you’ve all had a good start to the year and have some good reads to recommend (pop them in the comments… sharing is caring)!

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Why Book Village offers a digital library

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Apart from the Book Village App, we also provide our own digital library with thousands of children’s and young adult books for the learners and teachers to enjoy.

Reading for enjoyment has been described as a form of play.  It is a creative activity that allows us to experience other worlds, roles and feelings, in our imaginations.  The OECD in 2002 found that reading for pleasure in childhood is a better predictor of future educational success than a family’s socio-economic status.

From our experience many young South African children do not have any books at home, and so libraries are essential for them to access books to read outside of the classroom.  To encourage reading for enjoyment at any time, we have provided a digital library with thousands of children’s and young adult books.  The children love the freedom of being able to choose their own books, and a trip to the library is the highlight of the school week.   All the children at Cosmo City Primary are members of the digital library and can borrow and read books all year round if they have a device at home.  We’ve found that whilst most children do not have their own tablets, smart phones or laptops, almost all the children’s parents have a smart phone, and often let their little ones read stories on them at home.

We also want to encourage children to enjoy reading and listening to stories in their home language, and so we have added collections of the excellent Nal’ibali stories to the digital library.  We couldn’t agree more with the Nal’ibali idea that “Children who read and hear engaging stories in languages they understand are well equipped and motivated to learn to read and write.  They are also more likely to make a meaningful contribution to society.”

Frequently reading for pleasure and fun results in children achieving higher PIRLS literacy scores. (PIRLS 2006), but apart from that  – “The more that you read, the more things you will know.  The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”  Dr Seuss

Photo by Catherine Hammond on Unsplash

Terrific Teen Fiction – Our Latest Binge!

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One of the best things about being a primary school librarian is that you get to read any young adult book in the library you like and call it work.  We’ve been bingeing a bit on teen fiction recently, and here are some of the books we’ve enjoyed the most.

My daughter’s dog came home from doggy daycare carrying a large bone with a label tied on it that read, “Enzo’s first birthday”. She was incredulous that anyone would send home a doggy party pack, but I said, “Of course Enzo celebrates his birthday human-style, and if you’d read The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, you’d understand!”.   Narrated by the dog who has educated himself by watching TV and listening to the words of his favourite racing car driver, Enzo realises that racing is a metaphor for navigating tricky situations in life.  We were captivated by this book.

Of all the books I’ve been reading lately, The Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness is what I most recommend if you haven’t read it already.  We have a special anniversary edition in the library to celebrate 10 years of this award-winning trilogy.  The books are really gripping, fast-paced and original.   I was hooked immediately on the story set on a planet called New World where all living creatures can hear each other’s thoughts in a stream of images and sounds called Noise.  The novels feature Todd Hewitt who is forced to flee his town just a month before he is to become a man, and Viola Eade who is the only survivor of a group from a scouting mission that crash landed on New World. There are themes of flight, tyranny and war, cults, colonisation- and how that doesn’t usually turn out so well for anybody.

For a creepy, fast-paced read, try Five Total Strangers by Natalie Richards.  We read this book as it was chosen for Sora’s Big Library Read from Nov 1-15, 2021.  It is described as a “page-turning thriller that will keep readers guessing until the very end” (School Library Journal).  And it was just that!  I really enjoyed reading it right up until the end which I found to be a bit of a predictable let-down. But I’d still recommend it if you are looking to read a good teen thriller. 

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven has won literary awards around the world.  Described as “The story of a girl who learns to live from a boy who wants to die”.  The alternate narration by the main characters, Theodore Finch and Violet Markey weaves together their unlikely friendship that starts when they meet, both about to jump off the ledge of the bell tower at school.  It is a great read, quite gripping, that deals with important teen issues, and I particularly loved the characters. 

We’ll continue to bring out the youth in ourselves by reading the books that teenagers and young adults love best. 

The Effects of COVID on Reading in Low-Income Schools

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Sanitising hands in the library

We have had our last reading and library lessons for 2021 as many of our little customers have already left for the holidays. So we thought that it would be a good time to reflect on the effects of almost two years COVID measures in our schools.

Whilst everyone has got used to mask wearing, hand washing, sanitising and temperature taking -and can’t deny that we should always have been doing some of this stuff – the biggest and most important effect of COVID has been the massive loss of learning time for most South African learners.

The NIDS-CRAM studies report that as much as a full year of learning has been lost by the majority of South African primary school learners since March 2020 due to school closures and ongoing school rotations.  At Cosmo City Primary where we are conducting our pilot study, children attend school 2 days out of a 6-school day rotation to prevent overcrowding in the classrooms.   The effect of a little one missing a day of school translates into 1.25 lost learning days and we have noticed a large decrease in the reading scores of the Grade 3 children this year compared to Grade 3 classes we assessed in 2018, before COVID.

But there are some upsides to the COVID regulations. We know that it has been much easier for us to manage the split classes of 20-24 children in the library rather than the usual 50-76 children. Every child has the use of their own tablet and headphones in the library and we’ve had some great, fun times during the year.  We’ve also had the benefit of, and enjoyed working with, some young people employed to help improve reading in schools – the government’s “Reading Champions”.

We found the most popular books in the library to be the read-along books for younger children, which makes sense as we decided to work with the foundation phase this year. The most borrowed book of the year was from the World of Reading, “This is Black Panther”, followed quite closely by the World of Reading’s “Spiderman”. In third place for most checkouts was the Nal’ibali story, “Crocodile’s Funeral”. The audio book “Secrets of the Silver Lion” by Emma Otheguy, read by Kyla Garcia was in fourth place for number of checkouts.

We conducted a mini trial of the Book Village app. this year and it was really exciting for us to watch a young learner in Cosmo City enjoying a reading lesson from a tutor in Cape Town.  The app is being further developed and we plan to begin our first large-scale trial in the 2nd term of 2022, and we can’t wait!

At the moment there is a lot of uncertainty about the new Omicron COVID variant and we don’t know how this is going to affect schools opening next year.  But for now I’d agree with the conclusion of the NIDS-CRAM study that “moving forward school closures should not be an option in the response to COVID -19”.

Sora Sweet Reads no. 3

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This time we read the books in the Sora Sweet Reads collection chosen for 9-12 year old readers.  All of these books are available for simultaneous use for members of the Book Village digital library until 20th August.

The first two we read were set in summer camps which are perhaps a right of passage for American children.  South African children might not be familiar with summer camps, but will identify with the themes and characters in these books.

How to (almost) Ruin your Summer by Taryn Souders. 11 year old Chloe Mc Corkle goes to Camp Minnehaha where she decides to try to learn cake decorating to earn money so she doesn’t have to ride a baby bike to middle school.  Of course, nothing goes according to plan in this laugh out loud, tween angst filled, action story!

In Just Like Me by Nancy Cavanaugh, three girls adopted from the same orphanage go to Summer Camp and are asked to keep a journal of their experiences. It is a funny, sweet story about a girl longing to fit in with her peers whilst discovering connections with her Chinese origins.

The next group of four books are in the magical or fantasy genre, and the book I enjoyed the most out of this group was The Year I Flew Away by Marie Arnold. This is a magical novel about 10-year-old Gabrielle who moves from Haiti to Brooklyn and discovers how hard it is to fit in as an immigrant. 

Maya and the Rising Dark by Rena Barron is a fantasy tale of 12-year-old Maya who goes in search of her missing father and finds herself part of her father’s bizarre comic book adventure stories.  It’s a great action adventure with diverse characters that will be easy for our children to relate to.

The next two books are Star Wars Choose your Destiny Adventures by Cavan Scott. The two chosen for Sora Sweet Reads were A Luke and Leia Adventure, and A Finn and Poe Adventure.  These are choose-your-own-adventure puzzle stories that I think would keep children entertained and would be good to get reluctant readers going. 

Skateboard Sibby by Clare O’Connor is about super skateboarder, 11-year-old Sibby, who has to move to a new town and live with her Nan and Pops after her father loses his job.  She’s a great girl character and there are some good life lessons and skateboard action in the story too.

I’m putting the next two books into the science category, even though Frank Einstein and the Space-Time Zipper by Jon Scieszkais definitely fantasy with crazy, fun inventions and great pictures.  The story is interwoven with some good science facts though, that bring the concept of space-time to life for young readers.

Biohackers by Leah Kaminski.

This is the only non-fiction book in the group.  It is a quick, interesting read that will keep the attention of readers in the 9 to 12-year age group.  It introduces the topic of biohacking and explores future possibilities with excellent photos and diagrams and clear, easy to read text.

Next time, in our final post about the Sora Sweet Reads collection, we will look at the comic books, graphic novels and books chosen for younger readers.

Young Adult Sora Sweet Reads 2

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We’ve been enjoying reading our way through the rest of the young adult titles in the Sora Sweet Reads collection over the past couple of weeks.  These titles will be available for simultaneous use for all members of the Book Village digital library from 5thMay – 20th August.

Two of the books in the collection gave me some insights into events in history that I didn’t know too much about, and I really enjoyed reading them:

In the book, We are Not Free , the author Traci Chee was inspired by her own family history to create a story of the experiences of 14 Japanese American teenage friends, forced from their homes into incarceration camps following the bombing of Pearl Harbour during WW11.  The book is beautifully written in the style of interconnected short stories, and I think most young adults and adults will find it very interesting and moving.

I could not put Girls on the Line by Jennie Liu down.  Set in China in 2009 it is a fascinating story told from the alternating perspectives of two girls, Luli and Yun.  The girls leave the orphanage they grew up in when they turn 16 to work in an electronics factory winding up cables (in case you’ve ever wondered how this was done).  It describes how limited their options are when Yun gets pregnant with her bride trafficker boyfriend, and how they are trapped in a system that controls all aspects of their lives.  This book is a great page-turner for older teens and adults.

The next two young adult titles will appeal to older teenage girls, and if I’m honest I quite enjoyed reading them too!

Four Days of You and Me by Miranda Kenneally is an easy to read, well-written high school romance.  The book is narrated by Lulu with flashbacks from her friends, and describes four class trips taken over four years of high school.  Lulu and Alex start their relationship on the first class trip and the story progresses through the break ups and re-kindling of the romance over subsequent trips. Lulu has a full house of fashionable interests – she is a vegan eco-warrior, has a gay best friend and is a talented graphic comic book author.  I’m sure many teen girls will enjoy reading this book over the holidays.

In  The Year Shakespeare Ruined my Life by Dani Jansen,  Alison Green– desperate to be the valedictorian, thinks that agreeing to produce the school play of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will help her achieve this.  There are some funny moments and complicated teen misunderstandings and lesbian and pansexual relationships.  Overall it is an easy “ beach”  read – or in our case, a “tucked up under the blankets because it’s cold and we can’t go out because we’re isolating” sort of read.

Next time we will review the Sora Sweet Read titles selected for children in senior primary school.

Sweet Reads by Sora That We’re Reading This Winter

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Sora Sweet Reads is OverDrive’s annual Summer (Northern Hemisphere) reading programme of children’s and young adult titles designed to encourage children to read all year round.  And with Winter in Gauteng and Covid numbers off the chain, staying at home and curling up with a good book is the safest thing you can do right now.

There are 29 children’s and young adult titles available for simultaneous use from May 5 – August 20, by all enrolled in the Book Village digital library, and we decided to try to read them all!

We started with four books for senior primary or young adult with boys as the main protagonists.

Sora Sweet Reads No. 1:  Boy Heroes

Homes by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah and Winnie Yeung is a true account of a young boy growing up in a war zone in Homs in Syria, having moved there with his family to escape from violence in Iraq in 2010.  He describes how they continued their normal lives of video games with cousins, school, playing soccer interrupted by car bombs, fire-bombs, mosque, and school attacks.  I found the book quite fascinating, and I think adults and children alike will enjoy reading it.

We started listening to the audiobook, Ikenga written by Nnedi Okorafor and beautifully narrated by Ben Onwukwe, in the car one afternoon, and then spent the whole evening listening to the rest of it.  Set in the richly described Nigerian village of Kalaria, it is a coming-of-age story about a boy who finds he has magical super-powers through an Ikenga figure, and how he uses these powers to root out the many criminals in the town, and avenge his father’s murder.  I loved the vivid descriptions of Nigerian daily life and couldn’t help noting the similarities to South Africa.  

Hunter’s Choice by Trent Reedy tells of a 12-year-old boy, finally old enough to go with his father, grandfather and uncle on his first hunting trip.  It’s something he has been preparing for for years. He’s an excellent shot and knows all about guns, but now he has to decide if he is up for killing an animal.  The book has a bit of suspense, a bit of teen angst, and I liked the characters.  It will appeal to young readers who are interested in hunting and the outdoors, and as there aren’t too many books in this category, it’s a great addition to the library.

The final book in this collection with boy heroes is, It Came from the Sky by Chelsea Sedoti. This book describes “the absolutely true account of how Lansburg, Pennsylvania was invaded by aliens and the three weeks of chaos that followed”.  When one of 16-year-old Gideon Hofstadt’s science experiments goes wrong, he and his 17 year old brother blamed the explosion on extraterrestrial activity.  It Came from the Sky is a funny and easy to read account of the hoax, and how it developed its own life.  I loved the writing style that included interviews, blog posts and text conversations and think it will appeal to older primary school learners and young adults.

Stay tuned for the next sweet reads on our list!

Mothers in Children’s Books

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Mother reading to her child

With Mother’s Day coming up on Sunday, we thought it would be fun to have a look at some of the iconic mothers in children’s literature. 

But from looking through my own bookcase and the Book Village digital library, it would seem that any beautiful, sensible, patient and boundary-setting good mother would get in the way of a great children’s adventure story. In the best children’s stories, the mothers are dead or missing – or really awful!

From the list of great orphan characters there are quite a few princesses – Cinderella, Snow White, Elsa and Anna, animals like Bambi, Mowgli and Bagheera and Paddington Bear, boy adventurers like Harry Potter, Alex Rider, Tom Sawyer.  

The list of motherless and orphaned girls includes Sophie from the BFG, Mary Lennox from The Secret Garden and Pippi Longstocking. Pippi is the envy of most children for her independence and superhuman strength, for her chest of gold coins and her generosity, for not having to go to school, and for sharing her house with a horse and her monkey without an adult in sight.

The worst mother in children’s literature is surely Mrs Wormwood, Matilda’s mother.  She is so awful a small part of me almost likes her.

In the category of living mothers, most are absent like the mother in The Famous Five books, or kept out of the stories which happen in other worlds such as Narnia or in The Indian in the Cupboard.

So are there any good mothers in children’s stories? 

I always loved the eccentric Mrs Durrell as portrayed in My Family and other Animals who allowed Gerald Durrell to pursue his interest in nature, but the mother I was most envious of as a child was mother in the Swallows and Amazons books.  She’s definitely not part of the adventures, but she did sew tents and hay bags and get provisions for the voyage and made possible the wonderful sailing and camping adventures of John, Susan, Titty and Roger.

So to all mothers: You probably won’t be able to identify yourselves in any characters from great adventure stories, but you are the person who is most likely to take children on these amazing adventures through the pages of the books you lovingly read to your children.

Happy Mother’s Day! 

<a href=’https://www.freepik.com/photos/baby’>Baby photo created by prostooleh – www.freepik.com</a>

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