Using Comic Books as Read‐Alouds: Insights on Reading Instruction From an English as a Second Language Classroom

Abstract

A first‐grade teacher used comic books as read‐alouds during her implementation of a reading/writing workshop. The students, primarily English‐language learners, were able to make use of this medium in order to learn new reading practices. The teacher used the comics to teach multiple aspects of various reading processes such as reading with an eye for gendered representations in media texts, reading for recognition of dialogue, and recognizing a problem/solution structure in narrative. The teacher's use of the comics as read‐alouds demonstrates their use as instructional texts, because comics provide interesting and motivating material as well as visual support for literacy learning.