Language and Literacy Development in Early Childhood

Picture books have a rich history, from well-loved classics to postmodern, interactive stories and digital texts. This chapter explores the form and features of picture books and the concept of a metalanguage, which allows us to describe how words and pictures work together as part of the reading process. It concludes with strategies and activities for teaching visual literacy.

Anticipated outcomes for the chapter

After working through this chapter, you should be able to:

SCENARIO: MONKEY AND ME

Reading this story together for the first time, the children in the small group immediately take Emily Gravett's visual invitation to join in with predicting and making the story come alive. She invites readers to guess each new animal by setting up the visual design and image choice on each page. The engaging activity of repeating the lines invites reading along together, even though some children in the group are only beginning to decode print. Each page finishes with the promise of a new animal, but for the clever reader, the clues are everywhere. Six penguins and three chicks parade across the first page.

‘Look, that baby penguin is scared of the fish,’ says Sam, who has carefully noticed this visual detail.

As the story continues, the children notice that the shape of the little girl and her toy monkey mirrors the forthcoming animal, creating that wonderful feeling of being an ‘insider’ in the reading process. It is not only the shape of the girl bouncing like a kangaroo or swinging like a monkey; it is the typeface and lines that curve to mirror the next animal's behaviour.

‘What might the next animal be?’ enquires the teacher.

‘Octopuses!’, shouts Mia, ‘because the monkey's arms and legs look like an octopus.’