Trent Consultants News Early Literacy, Reading Comics Is No Child's Play

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Carol L. Tilley, a professor of libraryand information science at Illinois, says that comics are just as sophisticatedas other forms of literature, and children benefit from reading them at leastas much as they do from reading other types of books.   "A lot of the criticism of comicsand comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at thepictures and not putting them together with the words," Tilley said."Some kids, yes. But you could easily make some of the same criticisms ofpicture books -- that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at thewords." Although they've long embraced picturebooks as appropriate children's literature, many adults -- even teachers andlibrarians who willingly add comics to their collections -- are too quick todismiss the suitability of comics as texts for young readers, Tilley said.   "Any book can be good and any bookcan be bad, to some extent," she said. "It's up to the reader'spersonality and intellect. As a whole, comics are just another medium, anothergenre."   Critics would say that reading comicsis actually a simplified version of reading that doesn't approach thecomplexity of "real" books, with their dense columns of words andrelative lack of pictures. But Tilley argues that reading any worksuccessfully, including comics, requires more than just assimilating text.   "The term 'comic' is somewhatpejorative and tends to denote the child-like and ephemeral, and it brings tomind the Sunday funnies that you used to line your birdcage," she said.   The term "graphic novel" issometimes used to give comics a measure of respectability, Tilley said. Butsome artists, including Pulitzer-Prize winner Art Spiegelman, hate the term.   According to Tilley, even in the early1900s, there were teachers who raised concerns about children reading comics --that their content wasn't appropriate content for a children, and that itwasn't real literature. And when the first comic books werepublished as omnibus collections of popular published comic strips in themid-1930s, "the same concerns sprang up again from adults," Tilleysaid. "They claimed the texts weren't good texts because they used slang,there were misspellings, they used colloquialisms and that the pictures were ofquestionable merit."   Although commercial publishers ofcomics have yet to recapture children's imaginations, Tilley says that somelibrarians and teachers are increasingly discovering that comics can be used tosupport reading and instruction. "In the last 15 years, we've seensome big changes. For instance, comic book publishers and distributors areshowing up at library conferences and some review journals regularly evaluategraphic novels. That would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. So it hascaught on, to some degree."   Public libraries collect comics andgraphic novels much more than school libraries, primarily because of decreasesin funding and emphasis on strong ties to the curriculum through No Child LeftBehind. "Comics tend to be omitted underthose circumstances," Tilley said.   "There has been an increase in thenumber of comic book-type elements in books for younger children," Tilleysaid. "There's also a greater appreciation among both teachers andlibrarians for what comics and comic books can bring to the classroom. Forexample, the National Council of Teachers of English sponsors an instructionalWeb site called 'Read, Write, Think,' which has a lot of comics-relatedmaterial. Instructional units like these would have been much more rare 10years ago."   Tilley's research oncomics was published recently in School Library Monthly .   Adaptedfrom materials provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign .     Trent Consultants Psychology Clinic. Dedicatedto the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental, emotional and behavioraldisorders. Trent Consultants has a variety of programs for parents who want togive their children a headstart in life. Trent Consultants website www.trentconsultants.org Email: childcare@trentconsultants.org

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