No More Picture Books?

Are our kids growing up too fast? This is the question I asked myself after reading the New York Times article "Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children." The article reports on how unpopular picture books are becoming these days. Bookstores are having trouble selling picture books and publishers are not publishing as many as they used to. Part of this is because of the economy, but mostly it is due to the fact that parents are pushing longer chapter books on their children at younger ages. Parents think forcing their children to give up simple picture books and making them read long chapter books will make them better readers.

As an early childhood education major, I believe that it is important for children to become good readers as soon as possible. But I also believe that to make sure that children continue to read throughout their lives, they must actually enjoy reading. A good picture book can engage children on so many more levels than a poorly written chapter book can. When did creativity, imagination, and thinking become things that we don't teach anymore? Children need to learn to use their brains for exploration just as much as they need to use them to learn to read. I believe that picture books have the ability to teach kids both knowledge and the creativity they need to learn.

In fact, as a teacher, I plan on using wordless picture books a lot in my classroom. Yes, really. I love wordless picture books. They actually let children use their imagination. I believe that reading and writing go hand in hand and picture books are a great way to get kids brains working on writing. The lack of words and abundance of colorful pictures allows children to write their own stories of what the pictures mean to them. Children need a good balance of reading and writing skills. And reading long chapter books with unfamiliar words isn’t the only way to teach vocabulary. Ask a student to write a story and hand them a thesaurus. Let the child be creative.

Really, this all comes down to the fact that we push our kids forward; we want more for them. And then, one day we wake up and its their first day of high school and we wonder where all the time went. Kids like colors, and pictures, and funny stories. They like to use their imaginations and make up stories. Let's not put a limit on their creativity. Let's teach them. But let's let them have a little fun in the process.



John Morgan. May 14, 2009. Reading is Fun. Retrieved on October 8, 2010 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/aidanmorgan/3537327425/.