Images of Reading and the Reader

As we go about our daily lives we are presented with a vast array of visual and textual images, many of which affect the way we come to understand the world and ourselves. These images influence the way we dress, what we eat, how we talk to others, the things we choose to buy and how we construct our own identities. Images are constructed, either in textual or graphic forms, to represent certain aspects of reality, and although these images are not reality in and of themselves, they anchor us to our identities and to our being in reality (Fleckenstein, 2002).

In particular, images of what it means to be a literate person are included in educational documents, literacy standards, commercial reading programs and in selections of children’s literature. For example, the American Library Association undertook an extensive campaign to promote reading through a series of posters depicting sports figures, television celebrities and movie stars reading their favorite books. Images of famous people reading books have been displayed in school libraries and classrooms to send the message to students that reading was “cool” and it was important to become a reader. Public service announcements promoting the value of reading and the importance of staying in school, have been airing on many of the major television networks in the United States for several years now. Although the interpretations constructed by individuals about what literacies are available to them may differ, visual and textual images affect children’s understanding of what it means to be literate, in particular, what it means to be a reader.

Selections of children’s literature, like other cultural artifacts, are often used to portray particular aspects of reality and the human condition. Stories have the capacity to stir our thoughts and our imaginations and become a means by which we contemplate our past experiences and prepare for those awaiting us (Coles, 1989).

Images of the act of reading and what it means to be a reader are portrayed in children’s literature, in particular, contemporary children’s picture books. The images presented in the books we read aloud to students and those that occupy our classroom shelves and school libraries have the potential to impact students’ concept of what it means to be a reader. Whether we acknowledge the effects these images have on our students or whether we take advantage of the opportunities that may arise when reading and discussing these books with our students, these images may impact the way we come to define reading and the expectations we hold for the readers in our classrooms.

Students become socialized to see the depiction of characters in children’s fiction and its social construct as the way things are, an inevitable or unchangeable part of their social reality (Lewis, 1987). Allen (1997) contends “…the ‘hidden messages’ in the curriculum, including the representations of people’s lives in children’s literature, can shape children’s perceptions of the world and their roles in society and socialize children to maintain the ‘status quo.” (p.521). The stories we share with students that contain images of readers and the act of reading may have a tremendous impact on their understandings of what it means to be a successful reader in contemporary society.

Research on Images in Schools

Studies have been conducted to investigate various images in children’s literature, for example, images of the classroom teacher (Barone, Meyerson & Mallete, 1995; Burnaford, 1994), the negative images of schools and schooling (Greenway, 1993), the image of the principal in a school setting (Radencich & Harrison, 1997), and teacher-student relationships (Triplett & Ash, 2000). A recent study focused on the characters in young adult novels and their relationship to literacy and literacy development (Kuhlman & Lickteig, 1998). In addition, content analyses of children’s literature have focused on various images in children’s literature, including the portrayal of the American Revolution (Taxel, 1981), gender roles (Westland, 1993) and the portrayal of African Americans (Sims, 1983).

The study presented here was conducted to investigate the images of readers and the reading process depicted in children's literature, specifically contemporary picture books, in order to help classroom teachers and elementary students investigate their understandings of what means to be a reader in today's society. The study was a content analysis of the images presented in picture books through visual and textual devices, and was framed by the following questions; (a) What images of reading and the reader are portrayed in the text and illustrations contained in contemporary picture books?, (b) How do the images of readers and reading portrayed in children’s picture books differ from the ones offered through contemporary reading theories and educational publications?, and (c) How might these images affect the readers in our classrooms?

The study began with approximately sixty children’s picture books published during the last twenty years that contained a library, children learning to read or the process of reading. These books were collected through a search of public library and university data bases, and through the catalogs of several prominent commercial publishers. After an initial reading of each book in the collection, approximately twenty books were chosen that primarily focused on reading or becoming a reader. For instance, books that used the library as a setting but did not address reading or being a reader were removed from the study. The final collection of books were then analyzed across the following two domains; (a) images of the reader, how readers are portrayed, and (b) images of the act of reading, how reading as a particular ability and process was portrayed.

After initial categories were constructed, individual stories and illustrations were further analyzed to understand the variations within each of the two domains. Although elements of one domain are sometimes associated with the other, they are presented here separately to help us examine the images of the reader and the act of reading portrayed in the contemporary picture books under study.

Images of the Reader

Images of what it means to be a reader ranged from extremely reluctant readers who fought with their parents and teachers about reading, to children who loved to read and couldn’t live without books in their possession. Although most readers presented in these stories were children, adults learning to read and adults reading to children were present in several of the stories.

Reluctant readers were often portrayed as stubborn children that defied their parents’ requests to read and didn’t know what was good for them. These recalcitrant children would rather watch television or play outside than read the books they should be reading. In the story, The Girl Who Hated Books by Manjusa Pawagi, the main character Meena hated to read and hated books being in her house. Books were piled throughout her house by her parents and got in the way of everything she tried to do. When the animal characters in the fairytale books she owned came to life and emerged from her books, Meena had to read the stories in order to put the characters back in the stories where they belonged. By the end of the book, Meena had overcome her hatred of books and realized she could revisit the animals she had met by reading the stories once again. The book closes with her parents discovering her reading a book and are surprised and delighted.

In another story with a reluctant reader, Silas, The Bookstore Cat by Karen Trella Mather, the main character Peter was literally dragged to the bookstore and forced to choose a book to read because Peter’s teacher said he needed to read a book every week. He said reading was boring and he wanted to go outside with his friends and play soccer. Peter quickly chose the first book that he saw without even looking at the title, simply to appease his mother and make their time in the store shorter. Peter knocks over a table full of books and his mother demands he pick them up while she goes to the children’s section to pick out a book for him. Peter discovers a cat and tries to befriend it. The store owner tells Peter that the cat will only come to him if he reads a book, so Peter reads to the cat. In both of these cases, reading becomes a solution to a problem, not something enjoyed by the readers themselves.

At the other end of the spectrum, there were many images of the reader as the “bookworm”, where reading consumed the characters entire lives. These characters usually wore glasses and chose to spend most of their time in the library or reading. Reading was the only, or at least the primary, activity these characters engaged in throughout the stories. Many of these characters would often ignore other aspects of their lives to be at the library reading. In the book, The Library by Sarah Stewart, Elizabeth Brown, the main character, dragged a trunk of books behind her to school, read while vacuuming her house, preferred reading books to dating and filled her house to the ceiling with stacks of books.

Avid readers were also portrayed as people that went on adventures in their imaginations rather than in the real world. In Edward and the Pirates by David McPhail, Edward never left his house except to go to the library. When he returned home, he dreamed of pirates, dinosaurs and superheroes so much they came to life in his bedroom. He spent the entire story imagining adventures while he was reading, rather than experience adventures himself. Imagination and the ability to read seem to be these characters most redeeming qualities.

Readers, as compared to non-readers, were often portrayed as more civilized and more sophisticated individuals. In the book, Wolf by Becky Bloom, the main character, a wolf, began to ring the doorbell rather than jumping over a fence, began to wear glasses, a vest and a hat rather than appearing in his natural “furry attire” and addressed the other characters in the story more politely as he evolved into a reader. Readers in these stories were portrayed as intelligent, more civilized human beings that loved to read and would often forego other activities to engage in reading.

Throughout most of these stories, children that were unable to read saw themselves as dumb or at risk of failure in school or society. In general, the stories that contained struggling readers as the main character took place in a school setting. These children were given remedial help or special attention and were often the focus of concerned teachers. Older struggling readers were portrayed as troubled youths in need of parental and teacher guidance and extra remedial assistance in school. In contrast, readers that were learning to read on their own, often outside the school setting, were celebrated as precocious, intelligent people, learning a valuable life skill that was needed in society. In the autobiographical account, Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco, a young Trisha struggled with reading at school was often harassed by the other students for being too dumb to read. She did not want other students or her teacher to know she didn’t know how to read and eventually met a new teacher, Mr. Falker, that helped her to overcome her reading problems and learn to read. By studying; “letters, letters, letters and words, words, words, Trisha became a reader. It was hard work and took all of her time and efforts.

Compared to readers learning to read at school, readers learning to read at home or by assuming the responsibility for their own reading instruction by visiting the library were seen as courageous characters determined to defeat the odds that life had presented them. In the book, Richard Wright and the Library Card, the main character Richard Wright, the real life author of the novel Black Boy, was unable to get a library card because of the bigotry and prejudice associated with being an African American. In this story, Richard convinced a white, co-worker to let him use his library card under the pretense of checking out books for his friend. He read everything he was allowed to check out and overcame the challenges presented an African American man during that period of American history. Reading was portrayed as a powerful life skill that could help one overcome the obstacles presented in life, as a door to knowledge and as access to social goods and power.

When characters were unable to read, they knew their illiteracy was going to effect them in negative ways and often hid this fact from other characters in the story. In Read for Me, Mama, by Vashanti Rahaman, Joseph brings home two books every week from the library, one for him to read and one for his mother to read to him. His mother was a great storyteller, but eventually admits she cannot read the books that Joseph brings home for her to read to him. She cries and asks for help learning to read from the preacher at her church. She enrolls in a vocational school, and soon after surprises Joseph by picking up his library book and reading it to him. The story closes as they celebrate her victory over illiteracy.

Throughout these stories, the successful reader was portrayed as self-reliant, hard-working, independent and resourceful, while the struggling reader was portrayed as at-risk, in need of remedial help and often the object of jokes and ridicule. Both types of readers, reluctant and avid, were required to go to great lengths to develop the ability to read. Readers were considered hard working, independent, resourceful people that overcame the obstacles presented them. Throughout many of these stories, there was often a catalyst that helped the reluctant child or struggling readers become a reader, while the successful reader was often portrayed as a rugged individualist, spending time in the library and capable of their own development as a literate human being.

Images of the Act of Reading

Throughout the stories selected for this study, the act of reading was seen as a requirement for participating in society, something that was hard to learn, required a great deal of practice and usually involved the assistance of more capable readers. Readers used reading as a way to overcome the challenges that society presented them, as a source of knowledge and as an important aspect of becoming a prominent citizen.

In the story, Aunt Chip and the Great Triple Creek Dam Affair, by Patricia Polacco, the citizens of the town had stopped reading and focused all their attention on television. When a television tower was built, and Aunt Chip the librarian went to bed where she stayed for well over fifty years, she proclaimed to the townsfolk that “there will be consequences” for not reading. Reading was portrayed as an important part of life that the foolish townsfolk had neglected, and television was portrayed as one of the major causes of their illiteracy.

In several of the books analyzed, reading was described as a transformative event, a route to salvation, an event or process that could heal you and change you in dramatic, life altering ways. For many of the African American characters portrayed in these stories, the ability to read was seen as power, a form of cultural capital that was necessary to change their futures and their social standing. Learning to read became an epiphany, an opportunity to remove oneself from the chains of illiteracy and to start life anew.

Reading was also portrayed as a necessity, a privilege that had been long denied to this group of people through the prejudices associated with the color of their skin. In the story, More Than Anything Else by Marie Bradby, a young Booker T. Washington’s powerful desire to learn to read dominates his life. When he learns to read, through the help of another freed slave, he reaches for the sky and proclaims salvation. Reading, or the ability to read, was portrayed as an important skill that everyone needed, desired and was willing to work towards if they knew what was good for their future.

Reading was often portrayed as a gift given to those we love. In The Wednesday Surprise by Eve Bunting, a young girl surprises her father by teaching her grandmother to read. In Tomas and the Library Lady by Pat Mora, a young Hispanic migrant worker is befriended by a librarian and allowed to check out books on her card until he has to leave town. In addition, reading was described in terms of family and comfort. Parents reading to children in the safety of their beds at night evoked a sense of closeness, community and family love. Children would climb up onto their parents lap and enjoy a good bedtime story. Reading was portrayed in a positive light throughout these stories, while the inability to read was seen as a personal detriment, a problem to be overcome as soon as possible and as a deterrent from fully participating in society and life.

It became apparent rather quickly that the process of reading and learning to read was portrayed in these books as oral fluency and expression, and that the successful reader was one that could read aloud with “confidence and passion,” as was the case with the main character in the book Wolf. In several of the books, reading was referred to as the ability to sound out each word completely, to realize what sounds the marks made, to make your “voice dance” or to be able to see the words “talking.” In Today was a Terrible Day, by Patricia Reilly Giff, Ronald Morgan, the main character, was laughed at and ridiculed for misreading a sentence aloud during his reading group. This is representative of the focus on oral fluency that dominated many of the books selected. Reading was rarely described as a meaning making process.

In More Than Anything Else, reading was portrayed as a bottom up process that begins with understanding the “song of the alphabet” and the ability to know the sounds each letter makes. In this story, Booker’s mother gave him a book that contained the alphabet and told him it as a “singy sort of thing.” Before Booker was able to read the alphabet for himself, he knew there were secrets, magic and wonderful things “hidden” inside books that required the ability to read to be able to pass through a secret passage to discover those worlds.

Reading was portrayed as something that took a great deal of time to learn and as something that required a great deal of practice. In Joseph Wants to Read, by Fabrienne Teyssedre, Joseph is told by his teacher that learning to read takes time and practice, and that he needs to continue working on his letters and sounds at home over the summer. For the beginning reader, the ability to read began with reading pictures, learning the alphabet and the sounds of the letters, and memorizing sight words. In When Will I Read, by Miriam Cohen, reading was portrayed as something that readers learned when they got to first grade, and as something that would just happen when the time was right.

Reading environmental print was also included in many of the stories that focused on beginning readers as the main characters. In Carlos Likes Reading, by Jessica Spanyol, everything in Carlos’ house and environment had a label on it. In Look! I Can Read, by Susan Hood, a little girl goes around her house and neighborhood reading words, signs and labels. Dr. Seuss’ book, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut, discussed young readers ability to read everything they encountered.

In all of the books that used school as the setting, the process of reading and becoming a reader was discussed in the story. Reading experiences in school included round robin reading, reading groups, workbook pages and learning new words. Students expressed their fear of making oral mistakes in front of other students or the teacher. Readers were expected to practice hard and not to give up if they wanted to be able to read. Students were taught to strive for independence, where independence meant the ability to sound out words correctly on one’s own.

Discussion

The most significant insight that arose during the analysis of the picture books in this study was that making sense while reading, in particular, the construction of meaning by readers transacting with texts, was not mentioned in any of the stories analyzed. The reading process was predominantly portrayed as a progression from reading letters, to reading words, to correct pronunciation and oral fluency. This overemphasis on oral fluency and accurate decoding provides young readers with a distorted, if not insufficient, understanding of the reading process. It is not simply a reader’s ability to “perform” a text orally, but to understand what is being read that makes them a successful reader in today’s society.

Discussing literature and the sharing of ideas about the books being read was also not included in any of the stories analyzed. There were no literature study groups, nor class discussions involved in the stories. No connections to other texts were made and readers were never portrayed bringing their understandings and experiences to bear on the reading process. Contemporary reading theories suggest that readers should be able to talk about stories with other readers, relate the stories being read to the reader’s own experiences, interrogate texts from multiple perspectives, evaluate the versions of reality being presented and represented through words and images and understand that literature is a socio-cultural artifact created in a particular time and place for a particular purpose. It became obvious that the images of the act of reading as a meaning making process that we are trying to instill in our students are blatantly absent from the books being published.

In addition, many of the structures and approaches often associated with traditional reading instruction that have been shown to be ineffective, if not detrimental to children’s development as life long readers, were allowed to go unchallenged in the stories examined. The use of round robin reading and homogeneous leveled reading groups were portrayed as important components of effective reading instruction. These comfortable reminders of “the-way-things-used-to-be” need to be challenged and images of more effective reading instruction need to replace them in future publications.

Another significant insight addressed the tension between being a reader and being a “normal” person. In many of the stories, it was inferred that you couldn’t play sports, watch television, or live what most would consider a normal life, AND be a reader. We don’t want students to draw the conclusion that only pasty bookworms that wear thick glasses are successful readers. All sorts of people read. If the images of successful readers portrayed in these picture books are vastly different from the images children construct about themselves, it may become more difficult to help children see themselves as readers. We want students to include reading in their lives. It should not become a choice between reading and enjoying sports or being a normal child. Young children should be able to play soccer, go to parties and spend time watching television with their friends AND read. We don’t expect reading to dominate our students’ lives, just become an important part of it.

Education is the construction and reconstruction of personal and social stories (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). The stories that our students construct are influenced by the images presented to them and the ones included in the stories to which they are exposed. If we begin to use literature to open up spaces to discuss what it means to be a reader, to portray readers in multiple roles and not simply as the closeted bookworms suggested in some of the stories included here, we may be able to expand our students’ concept of being a literate human being and more students may find room within the new definitions we construct.

Society privileges specific groups by emphasizing particular linguistic styles, curricula and authority patterns (Gee, 1996). In much the same way, the images portrayed in the children’s literature analyzed for this study, privilege particular images of the reader and the definitions we construct about the reading process. Throughout these picture books, reading has been portrayed as oral performance and correctly decoding individual words, not as the readers’ ability to make meaning. As teachers, we need to disrupt this commonplace, modernist image of reading as “oral performance” often associated with elementary reading curricula. We need to question the images of the reader and the act of reading presented in our schools, in particular those images that are portrayed through the literature we read with children, in order to reconstruct the concept of what it means to be literate in today’s society. We need to open up discussions in our classrooms to critique the images we are presented in schools concerning literacy and help students understand the personal and social implications of these images and their effects upon us.

References

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Children’s Literature References

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