I remember when I was a child, my parents constantly encouraged us to read. Read books, magazines, packaging, road signs, captions, and cartoons, you name it. Anything in print was fair game. I was lucky because they were able to make reading a challenging game. Mom once said that she wouldn’t be surprised if she read the inside of the toilet paper roll. I replied, ‘but mom, there is nothing printed on the cardboard roll’. She laughed, but you looked and you would have. She was right. Now my job is to instill that curiosity about reading in these children.
As a teacher of what our state calls teens at risk, I am faced with the problem of students who are sadly unprepared. Students for whom reading is a chore that must be avoided at all costs. These students come into my eleventh grade classroom with just the basic reading skills of a fifth or sixth grade student. Now I am faced with the same problem that so many teachers encounter when realizing that their students simply cannot read and understand the materials they are required to master. They simply do not want and will use any ploy to circumvent a teacher’s attempt at class-oriented reading exercises. So what can we do?
Obviously, we must teach these children to read well enough to be able to grasp the materials that are presented to them. We cannot leave it to the reading teacher, who has more students than he can probably handle effectively. But if we focus on teaching reading, what about the content area materials? Integrating content with reading instruction is often a Herculean task. After all, how much reading do we get in a math class? 22 captures.
Many teachers will tell you that they are not reading teachers, and for good reason. In most states, additional courses and certificates are required to be qualified as a reading teacher. But, even without this qualification, teachers must be willing and able to identify reading problems in students and be ready to help them reach their potential. More and more states are requiring all teachers to take additional courses to ensure they can address this problem.
I have been deeply ingrained in this problem for some time and have learned that graphic novels or picture books, when used in conjunction with other materials, can increase student understanding and promote a feeling of success which in turn enables the student the opportunity to be successful in the classroom.
When a child comes to my class with limited reading skills, I use supplemental materials that fall into the graphic novel category. For example. One of the first books we read in my Language Arts class is War of the Worlds by HG Wells. As I watched the faces of various struggling students, I knew they wouldn’t even try to open the book. I was lucky enough to find a graphic novel version of this classic, one of the reasons I actually chose it, and I gave each student a copy. Suddenly, the faces of these students changed when they began to leaf through the book. Some even questioned. “You mean we can read a comic?”
In reality, the students didn’t realize that these graphic versions actually presented a more challenging reading experience, just like most graphic novels, but by changing their perception of the material and providing an alternative, I was giving them these students an opportunity for success that many had not experienced for some time. The condition attached to this book was that it should not replace the original novel, but rather a study aid. They still had to read the novel, but the graphic version would help them with some of the more difficult parts. Of course my “good readers” regretted this and I had to assure them that it was a choice and that the rating would be the same for everyone.
Additionally, class discussions, use of visual technology and other tools were also incorporated, but the greatest success apparently came from the incorporation of these picture books. If you think about it, your first reading experiences were probably with picture books, picture books, and then comics.
This concept can also be applied to math and science with a little imagination. Teachers who have good computer skills may find that they can create materials that align with their subject areas and provide a similar graphical version of the lessons. For example. I use a story about a maintenance man who is faced with the task of figuring out how much material he needs to renovate the school stadium. By using captioned pictures, students are suddenly solving word problems using more advanced math concepts or algebra and geometry when they previously struggled with simple fractions.
As the year progresses, students ask if they can do reports and other projects using graphic novels. I have developed some guidelines, but the affirmative has resulted in approximately 72% of my challenged readers, those entering the sixth grade reading level, passing their tenth grade basic skills tests at the end of the year. It works, but why.
One of the things that I have learned over the years is that reading ability is cyclical. Success brings more success and a greater desire to read more. Reading more improves reading skills, and as skills improve, desire increases and more reading occurs. It goes round and round. And the same applies in reverse. Students with reading problems struggle with required reading. They quickly come to “hate reading.” They avoid reading and their skills deteriorate.
Technology has perhaps done reading skills a disservice. We hope to learn things from images, especially moving images. Today’s students are connected, and in many cases the school classroom in which they spend much of their day is not. These students are bored and teachers are getting more entertaining than teachers. Students don’t have time to read and they don’t want to read. By incorporating the graphic novel or picture book, we are attracting them with something that they can connect with visually.
Often this is just the catalyst needed to show students that a world full of words is more open to them than they previously believed. They get the desire to continue as each success is measured and reversed into a desire for more success. The negative cycle is broken and the successful one begins. All because of a picture book.