Picture Books in the Secondary Classroom: Personal Connections, Creative Engagements, Critical Responses

by Janelle Mathis, University of North Texas, Denton, TX

Picture books have been defined over the past few decades with great integrity and attention to the complex interaction that occurs for the reader through the visual aspects of such books—text, illustrations, total design; a commercial product; a social, cultural, historical document (Bader, 1976). Still, when secondary teachers are approached about using picture books in the classroom, many somewhat shun the idea or act surprised that anyone could think this a valid curricular resource for older students. A small number attest to the fact that picture books hold significant experiences for older readers and these teachers can share numerous reasons why picture books play an important role in their instruction. Continue reading →

Connecting Text and Illustrations

by Prisca Martens, Towson University, Towson, MD

During September we have explored how learning to read mulitmodally by integrating the pictorial text with the written text in picturebooks relates to young children’s reading development. We’ve examined children’s responses to picturebooks when they learn to read multimodally and also discussed classroom experiences that support that learning/reading.
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