Children’s meaning-making from illustrations in picture books

Abstract

The aim of this study is to conduct a critical review of literature in order to explore how the picture book engages young readers through its illustrations and as a result, facilitate their meaningmaking process. Moreover, the study investigates the potential of picture books in teaching and learning. From the very beginning of their development, children are capable to interact with books even before they know how to talk, by looking and pointing at illustrations at the early stages of reading (Krishnan & Johnson, 2014). Children show surprising interest towards picture books, as they manage to construct meaning from illustrations, despite their lack in reading competencies. This is also referred to as visual literacy. Illustrations play a significant role in enabling children to gain meaning from books, so much so that some researchers believe that images are more significant than the text in the picture books. Meaningmaking is also facilitated through the interplay of the text and images which is one of the main features of this genre of literature. In addition, these predominant features found in picture books are known to aid in forming the foundations of early literacy development, reinforce reading comprehension and engage children in learning. This resarch study presents existing research specific to young children’s meaningmaking from illustrations, and moves on to highlight the main functions of illustrations in picture books and the impact they have on the young readers’ development of literacy, aesthetic understanding, multicultural awareness and language.