Growing up I spent every summer with a reading tutor.  Reading and comprehension were always a struggle for me and to this day I have to read things multiple times in order to comprehend the text.  I remember my mom begging me to read.  She was a passionate reader, sometimes reading a book a day.  Her favorite Saturday activity was the bookstore.  She would always take me and try to bribe me with a new title or fancy book cover.  I never gave in and always refused her efforts to make me a reader.  Despite my hatred for books, I loved magazines.  Magazines were filled with pictures and I am drawn to images of people, places, and activities.  I would always study the pictures first, sometimes never reading the text.  My mom saw my increased interest in magazines so she invested in magazine subscriptions for me all throughout my high school years. Life, Time, and People magazine came to me weekly and I started to do more than just look at the pictures.  My mom recognized that It’s not what I read, but how often I read that helped improve my literacy abilities. I reflect back on my reluctance to read and I imagine how children feel who speak a different language.  If reading is hard for a student they won’t read.  However, we all know that reading is important and we must find ways to foster a love of reading.  So how do you do that for an English language learner?  I want you to consider the role of graphic novels and their importance in English language learners’ reading development.  Graphic novels have all of the elements of a traditional chapter book, plot, theme, characters, and setting. However, they offer the reader with a different level of reading comprehension than a traditional novel as kids decipher a story with not just the words, but also the plot captured in the images. With a graphic novel, the reader must do the work. They have to see and think and wonder and look for clues and become a visual detective to understand the full story. Graphic novels also support reading comprehension and build vocabulary by forcing the student to use critical thinking to visualize and understand the art and illustrations. Also, some of us learn best by seeing and pictures make it easier to learn more abstract things and concepts.  Building confidence in a reader is also important.  ELL students who can’t read typically feel negative thoughts about themselves and their abilities.  Graphic Novels provide opportunities for students to “finish” a book.  And if that isn’t enough to convince you why you should promote graphic novels to ELL students then watch this testimonial of a young teen reader and their reading journey.  She describes how graphic novels helped her to learn to read and how they played a part in her learning to speak English. 

Unitl next time,

Katy

#psubuildingbridges #imls #aasl #ala #schoollibrarians