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Visual Aspects of Written Texts: Preschoolers View Comics

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L1– Educational Studies in Language and Literature

Abstract

As texts become multimodal, even preschool children, although they do not know yet how to read, confront texts in which the way they look contributes to the construction of their meaning. Even without words, just by looking at the text, its form and location, the colours of the letters or the background page, the letter size, or its font, the reader–viewer knows if s/he is going to read a dialogue or a first-person narration, if the hero shouts or whispers, his/her emotional state, and even his/her language and nationality. Three hundred fifty-six non-reading preschool children were tested on multimodal conventions adopted mainly by comics. The results showed that young children, even before they become print literate, possess a visual literacy that is gaining predominance in our times.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Preschool Education, University of Aegean, Rhodes, Greece

    Angela Yannicopoulou

  2. 9 Hydras & Ath. Diakou Str., 124 62, Dassos Chaidariou Athens, Greece

    Angela Yannicopoulou

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  1. Angela Yannicopoulou
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Correspondence to Angela Yannicopoulou.

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Yannicopoulou, A. Visual Aspects of Written Texts: Preschoolers View Comics. L1-Educ Stud Lang Lit 4, 169–181 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10674-004-1024-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10674-004-1024-9

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