by Prisca Martens, Towson University

This month in WOW Currents we’re exploring how to help children read the art and written texts in picturebooks, Picturebooks are “a unique art object, a combination of image and idea that allows the reader to come away with more than the sum of the parts” (Kiefer, 1995, p. 6). In our work we’re helping children read the art and think like artists to support them in experiencing the full richness and meanings in picturebooks (Martens, 2012). This week we’ll explore how Laura Fuhrman helped her first graders read and experience the art and written text in Sebastian’s Roller Skates, Continue reading →

by Prisca Martens, Towson University

Picturebooks are “text, illustrations, total design; …As an art form [they hinge] on the interdependence of pictures and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of the turning of the page” (Bader, 1976, p. 1). This week we continue our exploration of helping children read the art and written texts in picturebooks by seeing how Michelle Doyle shares the richness in Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match, written by Monica Brown (2011) and illustrated by Sara Palacios, with her first graders. In the story, Marisol, as others see her, is a mismatch of things that don’t make sense. Continue reading →

by Prisca Martens, Towson University

For the past several years I’ve been in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade classrooms exploring how helping children learn and experience the concepts and language of art that artists use to create illustrations in picturebooks relate to the children’s own reading, writing, and art. My co-researchers are Ray Martens and a number of classroom teachers who graciously invite us into their classrooms to learn and explore with them and their students. We are working together on this because of our mutual passion for picturebooks and our understanding that for children to experience the full richness the books offer, they need to read the art as well as the written text. Continue reading →