Tuesday, September 7, 2010

ADDING COMICS TO THE CLASSROOM READ-ALOUD

From the Editor,

Peter GutiƩrrez, who has written for The Graphic Classroom before, has a nice article on Dr. Rick's Blog about comics literacy and read-alouds, and I could not pass up the chance to promote it. The best part of this article is that it is the first in a series on how to properly use comics as classroom read-alouds. I can't wait for the next installment.

Indeed, it’s this rich connection that enables graphic narratives to provide unique ways of building literacy skills. Yet we can’t reinforce all these skills by the sheer act of reading a comic or graphic novel aloud. The realization of the full literacy benefits requires some facilitative strategies that are specific to comics. In my next post I’ll cover some of these in detail, now that I’ve provided, if not a rationale then at least a fervent pitch for why you should include comics in your kids’ reading mix in the first place.


It's those specific strategies and approaches that teachers need in order to effectively integrate comics into the classroom and increase student learning, which is after all the top priority of any educator. This is a must-read series.

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