Pictures facilitate children's recall of unillustrated expository prose.

Abstract

We thank Michael Pressley and Alfred Fuchs for their comments and criticisms on an earlier version of the article. We also thank Jennifer Kemp, who assisted in data collection, and we extend special thanks to the principals, teachers, and students who helped to make the research possible.

Pre-event discussion and recall of a novel event: How are children best prepared?

“…SpeciWcally, children whose preparation consisted of photographs with narration (goals + narration + photographs and goals + narration + photographs + verbalization) reported more correct information than did children in both the control and goals conditions. A body of research highlights the beneWts of pictures for children's comprehension and memory of stories (Lesgold et al, 1975;Small et al, 1993); for example, Ricci and Beal (2002) found poor recall and comprehension by 6-year-olds when a story was presented verbally relative to when it was presented in both auditory and visual modalities. The current Wndings extend this research in demonstrating that, to enhance 6-year-olds' event recall, both modalities are necessary during preparation.…”

“…Indeed, children's recall of aurally presented prose passages is enhanced by the simultaneous presentation of pictures, which are most eVective when they overlap with the story content but are nonredundant (Holmes, 1987;Lesgold, Levin, Shimron, & Guttman, 1975;Small, Lovett, & Sher, 1993). Moreover, the boost to recall is over and above the impact of simply presenting the verbal material twice (Levin, Bender, & Lesgold, 1976).…”

“…We selected photographs because they provide maximal feature overlap with aspects of the event while also conveying spatial and descriptive information that is not available in even a detailed narration (e.g., Deocampo & Hudson, 2003;Salmon, 2001). Given the research outlined here, these factors may maximize the likelihood that encoding of the preparation will be strengthened and the information will be integrated with the event (Small et al, 1993;Sutherland et al, 2003).…”

Reading the graphics: what is the relationship between graphical reading processes and student comprehension?

“…Other researchers (e.g., Hannus & Hyona, 1999;Rusted & Coltheart, 1979;Small, Lovett, & Scher, 1993) have concluded from their research that graphics actually aid in students' comprehension. Yet these researchers do not agree for whom or in what ways.…”

“…Graphics benefit All readers For example, in one study, Small et al (1993) studied 33 first and 33 third graders of varying reading abilities learning about three unfamiliar animals. Students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: description-only (listened to passages), picture-only (examined graphics), and description-plus-picture condition (listened to passage and examined graphics).…”