As future primary teachers, it is
essential to think about how important it is to teach our students to
appreciate images as a way of communication; since it is an essential part when
attempting to understand our society and culture. Therefore, it is very
important to be aware of the fact that teaching our students to see images as a
visual support to written texts and be able to interpret them, is necessary for
an appropriate comprehension of books and texts. Although the comic is an
underutilized resource, it would be very useful when approaching this topic.
But… what is a comic? A comic is a
story made of a number of pictures. Written texts are usually not necessary,
but we usually find them combined with pictures. We can see them in bubbles,
posters, texts or onomatopoeias.
Using comics within the classroom
fosters students’ interest in reading, because pictures help them understand
the story and make the text very appealing to them. Also, comics favor
criticism, creativity and synthesis ability. They provide the reader with a lot
of information that the student must interpret, and it is a fun linguistic learning
medium itself. It also allows us to work on the four areas of expression:
- Dynamic expression: working on the
psychomotor development of the child, as well as on the body schema and on spatiotemporal
orientation.
- Linguistic expression: preparing
the child for reading and writing, written and oral communication, visual
memory, etc.
- Mathematic expression: working on
perception and visual discrimination, shapes and colors, visual memory, spatial
position, etc.
- Artistic expression: stimulation
through the manipulation of the sensory and motor field.
Last, I believe it is important to
highlight that the comic is considered to be a literary genre. Therefore, it
should be recognized as a useful didactic resource. Combining pictures and
texts, we attract the students’ interest and foster a reading habit.
Hello Marta!
ResponderEliminarI am really impressed with your post because you have synthesis the main ideas excellently! On the one hand, I completely agree with you I think that comics are splendid tools that help students to understand and follow the plot of the story. What I also love about them is that they contain plenty of onomatopoeias which help to contextualize the environment of the story and make it more real. On the other hand, I strongly believe that in a bilingual context they facilitate the learning process of our students, due to, as you said, the among of pictures that act as scaffolding to comprehend the content. According to the project we made last year about how to teach Social Sciences through Tintin Comics, we could completely confirm this idea. In this case, the comic was used to illustrate many historic and geographical issues. This way, students could have the opportunity to learn them while they are enjoying the reading. Moreover, comics also take into account essential aspects of Bilingual Lessons, as it is the case of the 4C’s. In most of the educational comics, as Tintin, include content, in the plot of the story, and culture through contextualization seen in the pictures and in the place where the story takes place. Communication is quite obvious since students are applying their reader skills to follow the story. However, how would you apply cognition using comics Marta? I believe that comics should be also considered as a didactic resource to analyze before and after reading them. Therefore, cognition could be implemented in the challenges offered by the activities that the teacher prepares.
Finally, I would like to highlight what you have mentioned about encouraging all the teachers to use this educational tool (I am sure we will do it! :) ). As we both agree, it facilitates the reading comprehension process.
Thank you Marta for sharing with us your reflections!
Take care,
Carla