Comic books are great literacy tools for young people

Comic books have been a popular form of literary entertainment for decades. For many it has been seen as just that – entertainment. Superheroes battling the bad guys, promoting good versus evil, and giving children and adults alike an escape from reality.

But comic books, or graphic novels as they are now referred to, go much deeper than colourful graphics and witty dialogue. They promote literacy.

In fact, comics have been a literary tool in some schools dating back to the 1830’s. “There is a history of comics and literacy that dates back at least 180 years,” said Ryerson University English Department Chair Andrew O’Malley, who uses comics as part of the curriculum in his English classes.

“There is a Swiss educator by the name of Rodolphe Topffer who in the 1830’s produced a series of books in the form of comic strips with the now familiar sequential panels with text underneath them. They were kind of satirical and comical but he did use them in school where he was headmaster to help with literacy,” he said.

“It was really in the 90’s with the boom of the graphic novel that there was a kind of widespread popular recognition that there was a literary and artistic quality to these materials … Really the watershed moment was Art Spiegelman’s Maus that went on to win the Pulitzer, and since then, they have gained greater and greater legitimacy … They are increasingly being used in schools now.”

Comic books are said to be a very sophisticated form of literature. As O’Malley explains, the pictures and the text do not match perfectly. In other words, the text does not explain the image and the images do not supplement the text.

Reading comics actually requires your brain to multi-task – interpreting both the image and the text. “There is actually a very sophisticated kind of interaction going on. So comic reading requires pretty advanced decoding,” O’Malley says.

Visit this website page to learn more:

https://globalnews.ca/news/4189937/comic-books-education/

Report: UK schoolchildren held back by limited vocabulary

An increasing number of teachers in the UK are seeing large numbers of children who have a limited vocabulary range and they fear this will hold them back educationally and socially. A survey of 1,300 primary and secondary school teachers across the UK found that more than 60% saw increasing occurrence of underdeveloped vocabulary among pupils of all ages.

This may lead to lower self-esteem, negative behaviour and in some cases greater difficulties in making friends.

The report, commissioned by the Oxford University Press, found the word gap for many pupils remained “stubbornly high” at secondary schools, where teachers say they have less time and fewer resources to tackle the problem.

Secondary school teachers said that vocabulary deficiency held back pupils’ progress not just in English but also across a range of subjects, including history and geography.

Those with a low vocabulary were also less likely to do well in national tests such as GCSEs, struggling to understand instructions and questions included in papers.

A third of secondary school teachers reported a widening vocabulary gap between the first and last years of secondary school. The majority of teachers surveyed blamed declining numbers of children reading for pleasure for shrinking vocabularies, especially among older pupils.

Visit these website pages to learn more: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/apr/19/teachers-in-uk-report-growing-vocabulary-deficiency

Why Choose the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme?

It is a daunting task to find a primary school offering the best curriculum to help nurture a child, but the search is easier if you choose one offering IB’s Primary Years Programme (PYP). The PYP helps students develop critical-thinking and problem-solving skills through a trans-disciplinary approach to learning while making holistic connections across traditional subjects.

The PYP is an inquiry-based, concept driven programme specifically designed for young learners between the ages of 3 and 12 years. Students are encouraged to be globally minded by developing an international perspective where diversity is welcomed and celebrated.

A distinguishing feature of the PYP is the six trans-disciplinary themes of global significance. The students engage in meaningful, relevant inquiries that focus on making significant connections to the world, and developing enduring understandings. Each Unit of Inquiry is organized under one of the trans-disciplinary themes, and in every school year the themes are revisited with increasingly complex information, key concepts and skills from the core subject areas of Math, Language, Social Studies, Science, The Arts, and Physical, Social & Personal Education.

Through the attributes of the IB learner profile and the demonstration of the PYP attitudes, the PYP encourages international-mindedness and a passion for learning. Students are asked to reflect constantly on their learning, and take meaningful action based on new discoveries.

The PYP aims to create a curriculum that is engaging, relevant, challenging and significant for learners in the 3–12 age range. The curriculum is transdisciplinary, meaning that it focuses on issues that go across subject areas.

As a flexible curriculum framework, the PYP is able to accommodate the demands of most national or local curriculums.

Here we have an example from a private school in Ontario, Canada, followed by webinar and videos from the International Baccalaureate Organisation, explaining the curriculum in more detail.

https://www.guelphtoday.com/spotlight/spotlight-why-choose-the-international-baccalaureate-primary-years-programme-824818

http://www.ibo.org/uk/schools-teachers/pyp-webinar/

http://www.ibo.org/programmes/primary-years-programme/curriculum/

http://www.ibo.org/programmes/primary-years-programme/what-is-the-pyp/who-can-offer-the-pyp/