Comic Books Improve Early Childhood Literacy 127
Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that Professor Carol Tilley, a professor of library and information science at the University of Illinois, says that comics are just as sophisticated as other forms of reading, children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other kinds of books, and that there is evidence that comics increase children's vocabulary and instill a love of reading. 'A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words,' says Tilley. 'But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books – that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words.' Tilley says that some of the condescension toward comics as a medium may come from the connotations that the name itself evokes but that the distinct comic book aesthetic — frames, thought and speech bubbles, motion lines, to name a few — has been co-opted by children's books, creating a hybrid format."
What's the difference (Score:5, Funny)
Q: What's the difference between a comic and a graphic novel?
A: About twenty quid.
[kadradabumTISH!]
Re:No doubt. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No doubt. (Score:5, Funny)
There's an art to reading graphic novels, and knowing how to read them. To analyze the frames for relative action to the story and so on. I for one have never been as good at understanding comics as I have traditional literature.
I agree. My 13 year-old son can read a graphic novel and tell me the story in great detail. When I look at one of his books it's just a bunch of random explosions and women with bizarrely large breasts.
Tintin (Score:5, Funny)
Shooting rhinos for the lulz since 1931
More than pretty pictures. (Score:2, Funny)
I only read Playboy to increase my vocabulary and increase a love of reading.