Effects of Pictures on Learning to Read, Comprehension and Attitudes

If fish were to become scientists, the last thing they might discover would be water. Similarly, researchers have too often failed to investigate important aspects of their environment because being immersed in it, they fail to notice certain components of it; or, having noticed a component, they simply assume that it must be that way. One such example from reading is the ubiquitous use of illustrations in books for beginning reading instruction. Today nearly all children are taught to read from books containing pictures. In this country this practice goes back at least to 1729 when the New England Primer incorporated pictures with the text. In Europe during the 1650's, Comenius used pictures in his Orbis Pictus to teach reading. Only occasionally does one find a writer (Dechant, 1964) questioning the use of pictures or a published reading series, such as the Bloomfield and Barnhard (1963) readers, attempting to teach reading without pictures. Teachers usually accept the fact that beginning reading texts have pictures without wondering what effect pictures have on learning to read.