A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words

As I was working with one of my students during Practicum one day, I began to recall a discussion we had during our Reading Class one day in the beginning of the semester. During this particular conversation, we had been talking about all the possible ways of reading a book. Some of the suggestions included books on tape and looking at pictures, among many others. I followed the conversation and agreed with many of the comments made by my teacher and fellow classmates, but for some reason I was still questioning the validity of saying that looking at pictures can be considered reading. Im not sure why I questioned this. Looking back on my own experiences as I write this, I am realizing that even adults read through pictures nearly every day. It is a hard concept to think about though. After being educated in a system that has such a narrow view of literacy (You aren't "literate" until you can read a book fluently.), it's really difficult to not have that narrow view for yourself. My view has now been broadened! I fully believe in picture walking as a valid way to read a book. How many times do I flip through a magazine or newspaper, interpretting advertisements and stories only through pictures? How many times do you do the same?
Let's go back to the experience I had in the classroom which has led me to talk about this topic and the conclusions which I have reached. The best I can remember, it happened on our first day at Glen Alpine. The students were having their AR time, and I was up walking around watching students read, listening to students read, and occassionally stopping and sitting with a student and asking them to read to me. Well, as I was walking around I noticed "Will" sitting over in a corner reading a huge book. Wondering how he was handling all the words on the pages of the book he had, which was about Duke's basketball history, I went over and asked him some questions about his book. He told me a little about it and went on to read with me sitting there in the floor beside him. However, Will's reading had very little to do with the words on the page. He was looking at each picture on every page. And as he closely examined these pictures, he would attempt to read team names and player names on jerseys and predict what had been happening when the picture was taken. And he was so excited about it all! I would venture to say that Will would not have enjoyed this book in least, had he been made to sit there and attempt to decipher words, sentences, paragraphs, and pages, depsite the fact that Duke is his favorite team. Was Will getting anything out of this experience? Absolutely. First, he was using pictures to predict what was happening or to create his own story. This is a literary experience if there ever was one. At the very least, he had a book in his hands and was enjoying himself. This is a great victory in itself, considering the great fun many teachers and schools have taken out of reading in today's education system!
So a picture really is worth a thousand words. Or a least it can be. It's all in what you make of it. I hope to make my classroom a place where students can learn the value of being able to "read" a picture rather than a place where students are looked down upon for flipping through a book only for the pictures. I want my students to understand that books are to be used for learning and for our enjoyment, whether that means reading the words, the pictures, or both. Learning to read the words on the pages does eventually have to happen, but if it happens before a child is developmentally ready for it, then our efforts are worthless and only leave us with frustrated teachers and even more frustrated students. If I had a whole classroom full of Will's on my hands, I would be overjoyed. As long as my students have books in their hands and smiles on their faces, I can assure you I will be a very happy person!