eng/295 Week 2.pp

36

K A R E N M . F E AT H E R S & P O O N A M A RYA

The Role of Illustrations During Children’s Reading

Feathers and Arya describe how children treated

illustrations as an integral part of a story and

used them in multiple ways to support their

reading and develop understanding.

YOUNG CHILDREN NOTICE and make use of illustra- tions 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 litera- ture have long viewed illustrations as an important part of picture books that contribute as much to the develop- ment 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.

Exploring the ways that Sarah, and other children like her, use illustrations in story books is important because it helps us to have a deeper understanding of the role of illustrations in picture books. This understanding can provide a rationale for the use of children’s literature in school reading programs. In this article we share our 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 illustra- tions contributed to both oral reading and understanding.

Illustrations and Readers Illustrations are an integral part of picture story books. Bader (1976), for example, views the visual (illustra- tions) and verbal (words) as “interdependent components” of texts, both of which contribute to the development of story. Moss (1990) refers to the “interweaving of text and pictures” (p.21) and Lunn (2003) to a “marriage of pictures and story” (p. 189). Nodelman (1998) expands this view by pointing out that the relationship is more complex than simple equality of importance. He suggests that pictures and text change each other so that the overall effect is more than the sum of its parts (p.199). Following this line of thought, Sipe (1998) describes the text-picture relation- ship as a “synergy” because together illustrations and text produce an effect that is greater than what either would produce alone. Sipe argues that readers must oscillate between the sign system of the verbal text and that of the visual text (p.102). If this is the case, then observations of children’s readings should document their movement between the visual and verbal texts.

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Journal of Children’s Literature, 38(1), pp. 36-43, 2012. ©Children’s Literature Assembly ISSN 1521-7779

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Schwarcz (1982) posits two types of relationship between the visual and verbal: (1) congruency in which illustra- tions add to or elaborate the verbal text, and (2) deviation in which the illustrations oppose the text in some way. Nodelman (1988) suggests that pictures and verbal text limit each other because each frames how the reader views or interprets the other. Nikolajeva and Scott (2006) posit a view similar to Nodelman’s except they suggest that the verbal and visual texts create “expectations for the other, which in turn provides new experiences and expectations- ---in an ever expanding concatenation of understanding” (p. 2). They identify five types of relationships on a contin- uum from symmetry (equivalence) to contradiction. Of particular relevance to this investigation are the observa- tions of Fang (1996) who notes that illustrations serve seven functions in picture books; they establish setting, determine mood, define and develop characters, extend or develop plot, provide a different viewpoint, contribute to textual coherence, and reinforce text.

Researchers investigating child-initiated responses during storybook read-alouds have documented that young children attend to illustrations in picture books (Kiefer, 1982; Maloch & Beutel, 2010; Yaden, Smolken & Conlon, 1989). However, these studies have not addressed how children use illustrations while reading aloud. Furthermore, in these studies, the conversations were led and encouraged by adults, thus telling us little about what children do when reading on their own.

Researchers have also investigated children’s use of visual and verbal texts during read-alouds using eye tracking as a means to observe what children look at during reading. For example, Justice, Skibbe, Canning and Lankford (2005) found that five-year-olds looked at pictures more than at print as text was read aloud to them. Similarly, Roy-Charland, Saint-Aubin, and Evans (2007) and Evans, Saint-Aubin, and Landry (2009) noted that while children attend mostly to illustrations during read alouds, they attend more to print as their reading ability develops. Although confirming the importance of illustrations, this research does not provide informa- tion about what children attend to when reading on their own. Children’s use of illustrations during reading was explored by Duckett (2002). Using eye tracking he noted that first graders looked at both illustrations and print, and that movements from print to illustration were often caused by difficulties with text processing. Finally, our own observations of two second grade students orally reading a story confirm Duckett’s findings and suggest that readers use illustrations in multiple ways (Arya & Feathers, in press).

This research not only confirms the importance of illustrations during reading, but also validates the use of eye tracking to examine young children’s reading. Follow- ing this method, we used an Applied Science Laboratories Model 504-Eye Tracker and Gaze Tracker to identify what children looked at throughout their reading, specifically noting fixations on illustrations (the number of times a reader focuses on an illustration) and also transitions (the number of times a reader moves between print and illustration or between illustrations), as well as what children examined in each illustration.

In addition to being integral to the story, illustrations have their own meaningful order. According to Scholes and Kellogg (1966), ilustrations have a “dynamic sequen- tial existence” (p. 207) or what Wiesner called the “syntax of a story” (in Bandré & Button, 2011, p. 54). Given this view of illustrations, modifying or eliminating illustrations would disrupt the “syntax of the story” and thus cause difficulty in understanding. Therefore, we observed children orally reading two different versions of The Wolf’s Chicken Stew by Keiko Kasza (1987), a second grade story. Three third grade children (two males and one female) read the original version of the story, and three (two males and one female) read an adapta- tion of the text from the Houghton Mifflin basal reader, Silly Things Happen (Houghton Mifflin, 1991). The six children were participants in a literacy program offered by a university in a large mid-west city. Both texts were displayed on a computer with the story appearing exactly as it would in a book, that is, facing pages of the story were shown together. The children moved through the text at their own pace and had unlimited time to read. After reading the story, they were asked to retell the story in their own words.

The Story The Wolf’s Chicken Stew is about a wolf who tries to fatten up a chicken to make chicken stew by repeatedly baking goodies and leaving them on the chicken’s porch. When he goes to snare the chicken, he discovers that she gave the food to her chicks. The chicks kiss the wolf as thanks for the goodies, and the chicken fixes him dinner. The original version of the story consists of nine double page spreads and ten single page illustrations while the adapta- tion contains three single page illustrations, three double page spreads, and one page with three separate illustra- tions. Because some adaptations involve only one page of a double page spread, portions of spreads on the verso and the recto are numbered separately (for example image 2A) (verso) and image 2B (recto); thus there are a total of 28 images in the original text and 12 in the adaptation.

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How Illustrations Are Used Illustrations are important to readers as shown by their use during reading. All children reading both versions looked at all of the illustrations that were available. Additionally, illustrations were used in multiple ways, contributing to both oral reading and understanding.

One way the children used illustrations was to support oral reading. For example, Sarah used the illustration when she encountered difficulty with doughnuts. She looked at the illustration of the doughnuts and then successfully read the word. This contrasts with a later occurrence of that word accompanied by an illustration that does not depict doughnuts. In this instance she was not successful in reading the word. Although the children often looked to illustrations for support with oral reading, the illustrations did not always provide what was needed to identify a particular word. That was the case for Sarah who had a supportive illustration in the first instance but not the second. It was also true for Cory and Eli both of whom struggled with the word scrumptious. Cory looked multiple times at three different illustrations (Images 7, 8, 9), and Eli looked at images 7 and 8 and did not find any of these illustrations supportive.

Illustrations were also used to confirm what was read, whether a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a complete page. For example, Dave, after reading “All day long he walked across the forest in search of a delicious chicken. Finally he spotted one,” studied the illustra- tion of the chicken at the bottom of the page, looking at the chicken’s neck, head, comb, wing, back, and apron. After reading, “the next night” in sentences on two different pages, Dave looked at the illustration located at the top of the page that shows the chicken’s house under a night sky.

These uses of illustrations are possible because of the inter-relationship between the verbal and visual text. As suggested by Schwarcz (1982), illustrations can elaborate, expand upon, or extend the text. Even young readers make use of these relationships during reading. They expect the illustrations to provide information that will help them identify text words, either by providing direct information, such as a depiction of the object or action, or by providing a context that supports word identifica- tion. When the illustration provides useful information, like the picture of the doughnuts, the reader can use it to identify the word or phrase. When the illustration does not provide the information, the reader may be less successful. Also, because of this relationship between

the verbal and visual texts, readers look at illustrations for confirmation of what they have read or for additional information as Dave looked at the “delicious chicken.”

In addition, illustrations also set the context for reading. These readers followed a pattern of looking at the illustra- tions on a page prior to and/or after reading the verbal text, although this pattern was more pronounced among those who read the original version. Further, this pattern occurred among those who had little difficulty reading the text as well as children who struggled with word identi- fication. Dave, who did not have difficulty reading the story, followed this pattern for every page but one, but so did Sarah and Cory who struggled with their reading. Brookshire, Scharff and Moses (2002) indicate that pictures identify the context by establishing the setting and mood and depicting characters, objects, and events. Looking at the illustrations before reading provides children with information that may promote both reading and comprehension. Looking at the illustrations after reading may confirm what was read as well as provide additional information about setting and events.

Illustrations also provide information about characters. The example of Sarah discussed previously demonstrates how children use illustrations in conjunction with verbal text to come to a conclusion about character behavior. Dave used Images 14A and B to conclude that “the wolf was surprised that she was not fat.” These two conclu- sions—that the chicken was not fat and that the wolf was surprised—both come from information occurring only in the illustration (Figure 1). Illustrations not only depict characters, they also reveal the feelings of charac- ters through facial expressions and body posture. In this instance Dave looked at the chicken’s comb, neck, head, and apron, the door, the word “chicken” on the door, and

Even young readers make use of

these relationships during reading.

They expect the illustrations to

provide information that will help

them identify text words, either by

providing direct information, such as a

depiction of the object or action, or by

providing a context that supports word

identification.

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39

the wolf’s face and used this information in conjunc- tion with text on the previous page, “That chicken must be as fat as a balloon by now”, he thought. “Let’s see”, to understand character feelings.

Illustrations also depict plot and are used by children to develop understanding of this literary element. This was often revealed in the children’s retellings of the story, but it was also related to whether or not they had looked at particular illustrations and what was noted. For instance, Sarah says that the wolf “peeked into the key thing and the chicken opened up the door”. Although the verbal text indicates that the wolf peeked in the door, it does not indicate that the wolf looked specifically through the keyhole or that the chicken opened the door; that informa- tion comes only from the illustrations (Image 13A & 14A). Sarah had 31 fixations on the chicken, wolf, and door in these illustrations. Thus her inclusion of this informa- tion in her retelling of the story is related to the visual information she observed. Similarly, Freddie says that the chicken was “walking in the forest looking for food,” and that the wolf “looked at the chicken and wanted some stew”, both observa- tions based on information in Images 2A (wolf looking at the chicken from behind a tree) and 2B (chicken walking under a tree). Freddie had five fixations on the trees and the wolf, and no fixations on the chicken, although she did have what are known as gaze points (brief glances). These observa- tions concur with previous research (Bader, 1976; Lunn, 2003) which demonstrated that plot is revealed not just

in the verbal text but also in the visual text as they work together to tell the story. These children understand that illustrations provide plot information not found in the verbal text. They treat that information as a part of the plot as shown in the inclusion of information from illustra- tions in their retellings of the story.

Not All Illustrations Are Equal We have highlighted the importance of illustrations as well as some ways they were used during independent reading. However, not all illustrations were used equally. Some differences in the use of illustrations are related to the illustrations themselves. In the original version of the story, Images 7, 9, 11, and 12B are essentially the same. They all depict the chicken’s house surrounded by trees under a starry and moon lit sky. Image 7 appears on the recto, with Image 6 (the wolf carrying a large plate of pancakes) on the verso. Images 9 and 11 are also on the recto with Image 8 (the wolf carrying a plate of doughnuts) and Image 10 (the wolf carrying a large cake)

on the verso. Image 12B is part of a double page spread that shows the wolf approaching the house on the verso (12A) and, on the recto, an enlarged view of the house (12B). The only difference across images 7, 9, 11 and 12B (Figure 2) is the shape of the moon, which changes to

Illustrations also depict plot and are used by children to develop

understanding of the plot. This was often revealed in the children’s

retellings of the story, but it was also related to whether or not they

had looked at particular illustrations and what was noted.

FIGURE 1

Images 14A and 14B in the

original version of Wolf's Chicken Stew

FIGURE 2

Images 12A and 12B in

both versions of Wolf's Chicken Stew

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show the passage of time, and the larger size of image 12B.

Children who read the original version of the story gradually decreased the number of fixations on each succeeding illustration of the house. There were 17 fixations on the first image (Image 7), while David and Sarah had no fixations on Image 11, and only Sarah fixated on Image 12B, once during and once after reading the page. This decrease in fixations indicates that the children made deliberate choices in deciding the extent to which they looked at illustrations based on their occurrence in the story. Since later illustrations were familiar, they chose not to attend to them.

This can be contrasted with the extent to which children who read the adapted story looked at Image 12B, the only one of the four illustrations included in the adapta- tion (Figure 3). All of the children who read the adapted story fixated on Image 12B with a total of 19 fixations. This is about the number of fixations on the first image of the house (Image 7) for those who read the original story. This was the first time children reading the adaptation saw an illustration of the chicken’s house; so they focused on the details. The children looked at the door, windows, chimney, and the path to the house, the same things that were fixated in Images 7 and 9 by children who read the original story.

Adaptations/Modifications of Illustrations There were adaptations made to illustrations in the story which included omission of certain illustrations and also subsequent rearrangement of both visual and verbal text. These changes influenced children’s interactions with

the story. Images 13A and 13B are the same in both the original and the adapted story except for the larger size in the adaptation. However, because other illustrations have been deleted (Figure 3) and the text moved to this page, the amount of verbal text accompanying Image 13B in the adapted story is substantially longer than the original story. As a result, visually, the focus of the two facing pages in the original story is the illustration with only two and a half sentences of text, whereas the focus shifts to the text in the adapted story with six sentences. This is confirmed by the eye movements of the children reading the original story who had 40 fixations on Images 13A and 13B as opposed to 28 fixations on those images by the children reading the adapted story.

Deletion of some illustrations and rearrangement of others also influenced children’s reading of the story. This is most clearly shown by comparing the reading of one page of the adapted story with the corresponding pages of

FIGURE 3

Images 13A and 13B in the

adapted version of Wolf's Chicken Stew

FIGURE 4

Images 6, 8, and 10 in the

adapted version of Wolf's Chicken Stew

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the original story. This page of the adapta- tion contains illustrations that occur on three different consecutive verso pages of the original story. Images 6, 8, and 10 were shrunk and placed onto one page in the adaptation (Figure 4). As discussed earlier, three other illustrations (Images 7, 9, 11) that occur on the recto were deleted. Finally, the text accompanying each image was placed on the page next to it. This arrangement affected the children’s use of both illustrations and verbal text.

Children made the same number of transi- tions to Image 6 for both versions, but more on Image 8 (7 vs. 18) and Image 10 (6 vs. 13) in the adapted story. When reading the adapted story, children moved between the first paragraph (section 1) and images adjacent to and below the text. For Section 2, the children transitioned to all available images as well as between images, and for Section 3, children moved between the verbal text and images adjacent to and above the text. While reading Section 1 which is connected to image 6, Tony made one transition to Image 6 and four to Image 8 which is directly below Section 1. On Section 2, which is connected to Image 8, Tony transi- tioned first to Image 10 ( below Section 2) and then from Image 10 to 8 (next to Section 2) to 10 to 8 again. This suggests that Tony was confused about which image was related to Section 2 of the text. For Section 3 he transi- tioned to Image 8 ( above Section 3) two times and to Image 10 ( next to Section 3) once. The other children who read the adapted story showed similar confusion. For example, Cory transitioned to all three illustrations (Image 6, 8, 10) while reading Section 3, and Freddie consistently transitioned to the image that was below the text section she was reading, although these were not the accompanying images. This movement between text portions and illustrations indicates that the children were having difficulty determining the relationships between sections of verbal text and illustrations on this page of the adapted story. The lack of similar transitions in the same portion of the original story suggests that the difficulty is related to the adaptations made to the illustrations and verbal text.

Adaptations also influenced children’s understanding of the story. For example, the availability of Images 7, 9, and 11 in the original story (which depict the chicken’s house at night and the passage of time) may have

promoted a better understanding of the story for the children as reflected in their retellings. Two of the three children who read the original version specifically mentioned the passage of time as the wolf baked one treat every day and then went to the chicken’s house every night to leave food for her. The children who read the adapted story that did not contain these images talked about the wolf baking treats for the chicken, but did not discuss baking the food over multiple days; nor did they mention that the wolf went to the chicken’s house to leave food for her. For example, Sarah and Dave who read the original story said, “Each night he baked…and the last night he…” and “He made some pancakes and then doughnuts…went and took it to the chicken’s house.” Cory and Tony who read the adapted story said, “He was trying to make the chicken fat… he went home and made the cake, the

doughnuts” and “He found a momma chicken and he was trying to full her up by giving her doughnuts, a giant cake, and some pancakes.” This suggests that modifying or eliminating illustrations is not conducive to children’s understanding of the story. As suggested by Wiesner (in Bandré & Button, 2011) and Scholes and Kellogg (1966), these omissions disrupt the sequence or syntax of the story, and this becomes evident in both the eye movements during reading and the construction of the story by the reader.

What Does This Suggest? Our observation of these readers was based on the belief that illustrations are not only important but critical to the processing of story. Illustrations not only provide confirmation of information in the verbal text, but also new information about such things as setting, charac- ters’ feelings, and details of events (Brookshire, Scharff & Moses, 2002). The children that we observed used illustrations in various ways—as a support during oral reading when they struggled with word identification, for confirming what they had read, whether it was a word or an entire page, and for setting the context for reading a page. Additionally, our study of the children’s eye movements indicated that they used specific illustra- tions, as well as specific parts of illustrations, to develop their understanding of story, which then emerged in their retellings. Finally, the comparison of two versions of the

The children that

we observed used

illustrations in

various ways: as a

support during oral

reading when they

struggled with word

identification, for

confirming what they

had read, whether

it was a word or an

entire page, and for

setting the context for

reading a page.

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JOURNAL OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE VOL 38 NO 1 SPRING 2012

story revealed that adaptations that include omission of illustrations, as well as rearrangement of visual and verbal text, can have a negative impact on children’s reading and understanding.

These observations imply that there are many benefits to using unadapted children’s literature in school reading programs, both in terms of support for oral reading and for understanding. Illustrations provide not only useful information but necessary information as well (Bader, 1976; Nodelman, 1988; Lunn, 2003). In elementary school reading programs, teachers need to read authentic litera- ture to students, and children need many and extended opportunities to read this literature themselves to be exposed to different ways visual and verbal text are used to create a story. Further, teachers have important roles in encouraging students to discuss all components of a story including the relationships among components such as illustrations and verbal text (Lunn, 2003; Maloch & Beutel, 2010; Sipe, 2008).

Additionally, our comparison of the reading of both versions of the story suggests that adaptations of stories that alter the relationship between visual and verbal texts are detrimental to both oral reading and compre- hension. Given the clear disruption to the reading of the adapted story, authentic children’s literature and informa- tional texts should be used for all reading instruction. Currently, anthologies used in initial reading instruc-

tion often eliminate illustrations in order to shorten the stories (Reutzel & Larson, 1995) as was the case in the adapted version our children read. However, these modifications cause substantial difficulty, suggest- ing that adaptations should be eliminated and replaced with original versions. Feathers and Bochenek (2006) describe how one teacher did just that in her classroom while still fulfilling the requirement of using the basal reader by having her second grade students compare the original versions and adapted versions of stories. The students thus had more exposure to authentic children’s literature while also becoming more critical readers who began to question the motives of authors, illustrators, and editors. Similar opportunities need to be integrated in our instruction until authentic literature becomes the primary material for reading instruction. �

Karen M. Feathers is an associate professor in the College of Education at

Wayne State University, Detroit, MI. She teaches courses in reading theory

and practice and coordinates the Reading, Language and Literature Education

program. Her research focuses on comprehension processes, eye movement

analysis, and content reading. Email: [email protected]

Poonam Arya is an associate professor in the College of Education at Wayne

State University, Detroit, MI. She teaches courses in reading theory and

practice and directs the High Five Literacy Program. Her research focuses

on eye movement miscue analysis, comprehension processes, and teacher

education. Email: [email protected]

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Children’s Literature Cited

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.