The 10 terrific roles pictures play in the children’s English books

Abstract:

Children learn differently; therefore, pictures in children’s English books can help them learn better. Colors are significant as well because some colors make children pay more attention.

As we all know, kids love cartoons and these sorts of pictures can attract them more to read children’s English books. So, authors of children’s English books can take advantage of them.

Children love animals too and their pictures can be used in addition to their characters to tell stories or they can be used as a character in a book.

Although pictures and images play an important role in books, they should be replaced with learning stuff. Another point to consider is that pictures in children’s English books are interesting for kids who are under a certain age. 

Children’s books have a major role in the growth of children’s minds and their attitudes towards learning English. Children’s books can play an important role in children’s intellectual development.

At a very young age, the children’s first interaction with books might be tearing it apart or just flipping through the pages. But it is the parent’s reaction towards books that can cause children to be interested or reluctant to read books.

The parents’ manners, will affect the children’s opinion about reading books both in later years of their life and even in their adulthood. Parents might think that young children might enjoy toys much more than books, but toys are only used for amusements.

However, books take us on a journey. A journey that lets us meet other people, get to know other cultures and learn about lifestyles around the world. When reading a book, we can experience things that we may never be able to recognize through a real journey in life.

It is highly recommended that children start reading children’s books from an early stage of life. In this article, we explain the benefits of reading books in the children’s lives alongside explaining the effective role pictures play in the children’s English books.

The elements of Children’s English books

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English books are basic sources for teaching second languages. Books involve basic English skills as well as grammar, reading, and vocabulary. They are the best source for any English learner, especially for bookworm children.

Children’s English books should have definite basic features. There are generally five basic elements, including repetition, simplicity, creativity, briefness and using pictures in the children’s English book.

Here, we explain the simple elements of children’s  books in details to make it easy to understand the great influence of different elements in children’s English books on children’s learning.

Repetition

It is a common fact that children’s literature is full of repetitions. This fact is considered in children’s songs, stories, and poems. Therefore, repetition is one of the fundamental elements of children’s English books.

Repetition activates the children’s long-term memory. Plus, it helps them to make logical connections with what they have learned so far to get an overall conclusion.

It’s important that children’s English books go over what the kids have learned repeatedly. It is an effective common tool of memorization. It strongly involves the children’s thoughts.

Simplicity

The language children speak and use is quite simple. Simple structures should be used in children’s English books. Therefore, compound-complex structures and challenging words must be avoided in children’s books.

It is extremely difficult for children to get an overall analysis of abstract, ambiguous, literary, and complex texts. The simpler the language is, the better will the children get it.

Simple structures used in children’s English books motivates kids to get involved in the context deeply. As a result, children can easily understand what the main point of the text about. Children’s English books are the best English teaching source. They help young learners to bond a strong connection with English.

Creativity

Creativity is a powerful element in children’s English books. It provides children motivation, excitement, and amusement while reading. This element is mostly used in most of the children’s English books, cartoons, and movies.

 Children are fond of a fictional world where they can immerse themselves in. They like to use their imagination and put themselves in the stories., For example, they imagine being Batman or flying in the sky. By expanding their imagination, new ideas would occur in their mind.

Creativity is a strong element which expands children’s imagination as well as their thinking ability. It helps children to come up with new ideas to learn English by. By having creativity, children can invent, create, or design new interesting things.

The children’s English books which lack this controlling element cannot get children to continue reading. The books which are not attracting enough to spark children’s curiosity and interest, will give children a sense of boredom and dullness.

 Briefness

The children’s English books should be as brief as possible. Therefore, short sentences and structures should be used in the children’s English books as much as possible.

Children never feel like reading very long sentences to get an overall conclusion. They like reading short English sentences in children’s English books to get a whole assumption of the content.

Brief sentences are commonly used in children’s English books. They shortly contain significant information. The short sentences are the reflection of the main theme.

This essential element of the children ‘s English books effectively helps children to learn and improve their English skills in a short while. Briefness also makes English learning process much easier for kids.

Using pictures

Another element of the children’s English books is using pictures. Using pictures in children’s English books is necessary because it gives a cheerful, colorful, and amusing attraction to the context. It makes the text interesting and fascinating.

Children may find reading English words dull, boring, and time-consuming. They usually do not read English story books that don’t have pictures. Pictures are an efficient matter in children’s English books; by which children can quickly understand what the topic of the text is exactly about.

The pictures of the children’s English books are also great for English visual learners. Visual learners improve their English skills and obtain the main information of a text through pictures used in the children’s English books.

 The pictures used in the children’s English books help children to enhance their English knowledge. Children can improve their vocabulary and reading comprehension through the pictures.

It is an important matter that the pictures used in children’s English books should have positive characteristics. They should be interesting, motivating, and amusing.

The suitable classifications of pictures in children’s English books:

As mentioned above, pictures are an important element used in children’s English books. However, there are essential matters about the pictures used in these books which should be considered.  

There are generally eight recommended classifications of pictures which are suitable for children’s English books.

The eight classifications are:

Animals:

Most children are fond of animals. Some of them may have pets such as dogs, cats, birds. Children are curious about the characteristic of animal species.

The pictures of animals in the children’s English books help children to focus deeply on the text. They also interest the children in what they are reading.

Using pictures of animals helps kids to enhance their English vocabulary. Through animal pictures, children can learn new words and memorize them.

Disney characters:

Children love Disney characters. They may be a fan of Disney characters such as Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Cinderella, the snow-white, and more on.

When children notice their favorite Disney characters in the children’s English books, they pay all their attention to the context of the book. They pay attention to realize the connection between the Disney character and the main idea of the text.

As a result, children become more engaged in the context by this classification of the children’s English book.

The pictures of the Disney characters effectively increase children’s concentration, engagement, and study.

In addition, the Disney pictures boost children’s interest in the English culture. That is, children will show more interest to know more about the Disney characters; as a result, children’s knowledge of English language will be improved.

 Food:

The pictures of food are strongly effective for grabbing kids’ attention. It helps children to focus on the main content of the children’s English book more.

The pictures of different kinds of food in children’s English book encourages children to know a wide variety of foods.

Moreover, children will tend to learn the English instructions to prepare their favorite English food as well; as a result, their English will implicitly improve.

Sports games:

Nowadays, many people, especially children, are big fans of different sports games. The picture of sports games is a good choice to use in children’s English books.

Sport games effectively attract a lot of attention. These pictures in children’s English books also make children care about their physical health. In addition, they focus on improving their English knowledge.

Furthermore, it is a practical way of enhancing children’s English vocabulary. In this way, children will indirectly learn the names of different English sports games.

 Nature:

Pictures of nature are the symbol of peace. They are suitable selections to be used in children’s English books.

Children love the nature and that is why the pictures of nature can be used to attract the children. Pictures of nature in children’s English books have effective influence on children’s learning process.

Fruits:

The pictures of fruits are one of the best options to use in children’s English books. Children have great interest in knowing the names of different types of fruits in English.

As a result, the pictures of fruits in children’s English books effectively help children to improve their English vocabulary.

Toys:

The most amusing method to teach English to kids is using toys. Therefore, the pictures of toys are really beneficial and useful in the English books for children.

The pictures of toys in children’s English books properly matches the kids’ world. Toys are the greatest motivator which make English learning fun and entertaining for children.

Popular fictional characters:

At last, pictures of popular fictional characters such as Harry Potter, Batman, Superman, and Peter pan are one of the best options to use in children’s English books.  Most children grow up watching famous cartoons such as SpongeBob or movies such as Harry Potter.

Therefore, when children notice the pictures of the fictional heroes on a page of a children’s English book, they will certainly become curious about the book. The more children get involved in English texts; the more will they improve their English.

All in all, children need to learn English through suitable English books. Children’s English books should be engaging, motivating, amusing, and educating.

Therefore, children’s English books should have certain characteristics, mentioned in the article, in order to be productive for the children.

The most important feature of good children’s English books is the fact that they should have enough colorful pictures that attract the children. Illustrative books not only grasp children’s interest and attention but they also motivate children to learn better.

Why use pictures

Children’s brains work in a few different ways than adults. When they are younger, they have a much shorter attention span. Colorful images and vibrant sceneries in children’s English books draw their attention more.

In children’s English books related images and pictures make the book more appealing to younger children. They can be used as a reference to conversations and exercises. Kid’s books need more talented and skilled editors for this task to place pictures and images strategically throughout the book to maximize contact.

The pictures used in the children’s English books

According to a recent study by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, pictures in children’s English books and their quality and creativity, play a very big role. They capture children’s attention and speed up their learning process.

Based on the mentioned research, the correct and effective use of images can arouse children’s interest in reading from an early age. Children learn best when they are motivated enough. Such motivation will be established and expanded in the earliest stages of their lives.

The first stages of the children’s lives, are the best time for them to develop an interest in proper reading. Text and image are the two parts of the same component. They reinforce each other in creating the overall impression of the narrative.

Pictures in children’s English books might provide the smallest details that even the most detailed texts cannot. Images arrange information that allows us to reinterpret the meaning of the words to understand the concept.

In terms of pictures , fantasy and cartoonish images are more attractive to children than real-life pictures. They are also easier to produce for children’s English books. They can be fictional, and that solely opens infinite possibilities for an image.

Important points about using Animals and humans in children’s English books

Antimorphic animals can be used to convey information in children’s English books. Children tend to like exotic animals such as dolphins and crocodiles. Cute animals also look quite attractive to kids, such as puppies and kittens.

They can be portrayed as having conversations or explaining the phenomenon in English. As mentioned, there are many possibilities with these types of media.

However, they are not limited to animals. Humans with silly or funny body types and shapes can be used in children’s English books. Note that they can accidentally look creepy and terrifying to children. This sense of terror in children’s English books comes with the fact that sometimes-drawn humans are supposed to look like one, but something is wrong with them. Something they cannot put their hands on.

This sense in children’s English books of unnecessary can make children creepy by the images. To avoid this, trying to draw super realistic human faces should be avoided in children’s English books.

How to use images effectively

The images in children’s English books should not obstruct too much of a page as it wastes space for more literary elements. They should instead be small treats from all the writings and literature. They are great at refreshing kids’ minds and giving them enough interest to pay attention to the subject.

With all of these images and colorful pictures, the kids might get overstimulated, impacting their English learning abilities. they should avoid overusing the images and pictures to avoid overstimulating the child’s eyes.

The pages of children’s English books should instead be designed in a sophisticated way but not to the extent of being minimalist as that will turn the English learning process into a boring one.

What kind of pictures in teenage books

As children grow up, silly and cartoonish images should slowly be replaced with more mature and realistic imagery. The same contrast and colorfulness that attracted young kids to learn English will reverse the adolescent brain process.

Teenagers are likely to perceive these images as too childish and immature. Now it is the time to use all those high quality and realistic images to teach.

How to find pictures

The other challenge is finding images that are attractive to adolescents. Their sense of identity is becoming more active at this age, and their passions and interests are getting distinguished.

This makes it difficult to predict what gets their attention more and what hinders their interest. At this age, they slowly start to leave children’s English books behind and lean into a more academic intense English learning course.

 More images related to academic English subjects, such as higher education establishments, technology, or politics, should be used at this phase. This is an excellent opportunity to teach practical skills and required knowledge in English. It is possible to include more detailed and advanced images at this stage.

 Since their brains and intellect is much more competent than children, the children’s English books can include more advanced teaching methods.

Now, it might be challenging to portrait theoretical subjects such as grammar in the form of images. In these kinds of situations, the picture in children’s English books does not necessarily need to be related entirely to the subject.

The importance of colors in children’s English books

Contrast is another essential feature children’s English books designers should work on. The color of the background and the images should make a pleasant contrast that is easy to read, easy to follow, and should not strain children’s eyes—the use of vibrant colors such as red, purple, and yellow are more likely to draw children’s attention.

The writings should have the proper color and drop shadow in children’s English books to avoid blending in with the background. They must be as attractive to children as images are, so it discourages ignoring the writings in children’s English books.

The best pictures to use in children’s English books

The best children’s English books have memorable, text-related illustrations. The kind of literature that entertains children can also be seen in pictures. The most important thing to remember when writing children’s English books is the audience of the book, in other words, who will read the book.

As mentioned earlier in the article, children’s English books must be simple and understandable. But aside from the text of the book, the pictures must also be simple and comprehendible.

The story should be told by the use of pictures which are clearly distinguishable and recognizable.

Another issue to consider is the coherence and uniformity of the illustrations throughout the children’s English books. Each of the characters must be clearly identifiable from the beginning to the end of the book. Children, no matter their age, love to be able to identify the characters in a book as they turn the pages.

As mentioned before, the most important thing to keep in mind when choosing children’s English books is to remember the book’s audience. One of the important goals in children’s English books page layout is to create extra motivation for the kids to read, make it easier to read and create beauty by using sensible visual elements.

In the layout of children’s books, the important principle is to observe simplicity and avoid complexity. The layout of the children’s English books should help to make a kind of cheerfulness and vitality.

The children’s English books should not be associated with serious and gloomy problems; At the same time, it helps the development and the flourishment of the child’s consciousness and intelligence. It is clear that these goals can be achieved with the help of illustrations.

A children’s book can be considered as a cultural product that uses color as a key element in relation to children. Color has an extraordinary power of expression to convey a sense within the text.

Cheerful colors make the images attractive, and it is better if the illustrator avoids using dark colors such as black, dark brown, and crimson, except in limited cases.

Conclusion

All of these factors come into play in creating a practical and great English learning book. Since the children’s English books are customized for different age groups and interests, it is easier for teachers to manage their apprentices.

This, combined with a productive and energetic learning environment, is likely to produce excellent results and attract potential customers. Building on high standards, good results, and good customer service will result in a high reputation in children’s English books.

Though it is hard to make the perfect children’s English books, small achievements can be made by preserving work integrity.

FAQS :

Why are children’s books important?

The combination of words, pictures, and symbols to communicate a narrative has continuously been researched.  Picture books are very illustrated and collaborate images and words. Both words and pictures are essential during direct communication with children; this is the magnificent difference between picture books and other Children’s English books. In the following, you will find critical benefits of picture books for kids.

The top five important benefits Children’s English books especially picture ones bring to children are:

Build language skills:

Kids learn to recognize sounds and patterns within spoken language when they begin to speak and build sentences. This process is called phonological awareness that is the foundation for learning to read. Many Children’s English books, especially the picture ones, have a rhythmic cadence that helps them develop and practice phonological awareness.

Children first repeat the passages of Children’s English books. After passing this stage, they make up their own similar stories or rhymes. Children’s English books, especially the picture ones, help children understand that words convey meaning and connecting the book’s pictures with the words on the page at a most basic level.  For vocabulary development, they will check photos on the page for background knowledge or contextual clues. They also use the images in Children’s English books to learn the names of new objects. 

Identify sequence:

Children can practice their comprehension ability by organizing the series of events in a story of Children’s English books. Mastering this skill starts with identifying the beginning, middle, and end and summarizing critical events throughout the story in children’s English books.

Visual aids and illustrations help the children get reminded about what happened throughout the story. They support their retelling of the keys events ability in the children’s English books. Children’s English books that are full of pictures encourage children to make predictions and inferences about the subsequent events. They can pair the words with the setting and expressions shown in the images to make an informed guess about the subsequent events in the story of children’s English books.

Improve comprehension:

Children should master many essential skills to comprehend what they read in children’s books. Some of these skills are sentence construction, sequencing and summarizing, comparing and contrasting, problem-solving, drawing conclusions, inferring, and so on. Children’s English books, full of illustrations and photos, offer many benefits to help enhance reading comprehension. A few of those benefits are:

• Pictures provide visual clues to help children discover more about the narrative in the children’s English books.
• Pictures show expressions, setting, unwritten details, and context that help children compare, contrast, and  analyze more complex details of character development in children’s books.
• Illustrations can provide necessary background knowledge for children and offer contextual cues based on what’s happening in the children’s English books. It helps children “read between the lines” to find meaning that may not be explicitly stated in the text.

Spark a love of reading:

The illustrations of children’s English books can be entertaining, enchanting, and inspiring. They have a story of their own. Most of us remember children’s English books, especially the picture ones, which made us first fall in love with reading.

Pictures of children’s English books can spark joy and create a fun and engaging reading experience for children. Children’s English books with pictures do a better job of holding children’s attention to the learning process than children’s English books without pictures can.  Using children’s English books with pictures regularly help the kids self-monitor their behavior until they can understand the whole story and focus on the events. 

Boost social-emotional learning:

 The subject matter in children’s English books can introduce cultural differences and social cues that encourage emotional-social development. These modeled social behaviors can help the kids to develop social language skills and reinforce positive behavior. 

Children’s English books include different topics like fear, taking risks, building friendships, self-control, and so on in itself. They also offer outlets for children to explore challenging issues in an approachable format. The illustrations in children’s English books help children relate to the characters and setting portrayed.

Learn more about other regions in the world

Children’s English books, if designed properly could be a great helping hand in teaching cultures of different areas in the world. Such books also teach children about different landscapes, people, and foods that you might come across exploring the world.

This helps kids get to know the world around them better, and start interacting with the environment and people in their surroundings. Getting to know other cultures and differentiate their unique aspects on their own needs lots of hard work and hustle along the way, but reading children’s English books has paved the way for the kids who aim to do so.

Boosting creativity & imagination

Children’s English books must include lots of exercises that tend to provoke creativity and imagination in the child’s mind. For example, the writer can write an exercise about how to make paper planes for children and teach them to do so. This alone can help the kids imagine its different procedures in their brain and try to sort it out on their own.

Children’s English books can boost kids’ creativity by offering them different approaches to implementing a task. A children’s English book which contains different stories trains kids’ minds to portray lots of new pictures and spaces in their minds. This helps to provoke the concept of imagination in the children’s brain.

Performing well in doing other educational tasks in school

Some kids with the age of 4-7, find it difficult to merge in with other students and educational context. Studying children’s English books is a great way to enhance those abilities required in school to get educated.

What makes a good children’s book?

What features make a children’s book a more critical, better, and popular book among children? The exact features are not clarified, but you will find some characteristics of good children’s books, perfect children’s English books with pictures in the following.

An Interesting, Relatable Story:

The story of the best children’s English books that include pictures will be engaging and captivating. Some aspects of the story or character will usually be relatable to kids. Children’s English books with pictures with universally relatable topics such as fear, love, and adventure tend to stay relevant.

According to the “Education.com” research, “childrens’ books stand the test of time because their authors write about topics that matter.” Good children’s English books with pictures should include an exciting story that make most readers invested in a specific book.

Good children’s English books with pictures should have a tale appealing heavily to the literary taste of children. They should have a story that piques children’s interests and is as relatable to children as possible.

Engaging and simple language:

The best children’s English books should have interesting, engaging, but straightforward language. Naturally, the rhythm of the language and the story’s words will flow through the book’s pages.

Rhyming is one of the most popular and influential ways to develop active listening skills, phonemic awareness, and early phonics skills. It will be a more valuable learning experience to learn a few new words from a book. Using simple language in the children’s English books with pictures is a must.

Multicultural:

Most of the children’s English books with pictures are inclusive and informative about the cultures of our world.  They include diverse stories, characters, songs, and traditions from around the world. Children’s books that honor various cultures can teach them about their classmates and community members, affirm students’ identities, and increase understanding between cultures at an early age.

The best children’s English books also draw the kids’ attention into the story, lend themselves to the discussion, and ask them questions. Good children’s English books with pictures are one that children genuinely enjoy while understanding. Children’s Book Council believes that the kids should enjoy their reading and learning experiences to develop some skills for the rest of their lives.

Captivating illustrations:

One of the essential parts of good children’s English books is illustrations. It is often difficult for kids to read books with just plain text They will quickly get bored and distracted. Besides, they are generally visual readers.

Kids will depend on images a lot to understand a particular story, even if they have the reading ability. For persuading the kids into reading children’s English books from the beginning, children’s English books should be full of illustrations. The illustrations of the children’s English books should be lively and colorful to keep the kids excited and eager to find out more.

Valuable message:

The best children’s English books with pictures are well-written, aesthetically pleasing, and valuable. They should have a message to be considered reasonable. The kids should learn some important lessons about life in general from the children’s English books.  The messages should be honest, straightforward, and valuable.

 

What are the English children’s books for beginners?

Good children’s English books are the most important thing during ESL English courses for kids. Many professionals worldwide have published different activity-based and curriculum-based children’s English books for every English level of learning. Children’s English books have been made based on reading, writing, grammar, or all of the above.

Following, you will find some characteristics of good children’s English books and a list of some of them.  Using text and activity children’s English books at home and in the classroom help the kids grow their  English knoewledge.

Using children’s English books in different environments gives the kids a different perspective and atmosphere of learning. In the following list, the ten top children’s English books are named. They are:

1. Oxford Picture Dictionary by Jenni Currie Santamaria and Joan Ross Keyes is suitable for kids five and up. These children’s English books teach vocabulary to the kids in social studies, science, math, and other topics with the help of rich visuals that brings learning to life. This book has picture vocabulary cards, Audio CDs, reading practice, and writing practice.

2. Let’s Go Series by  Barbara Hoskins, Karen Frazier, Ritsuko Nakata, and Carolyn Graham are suitable for 5 – 11 years. These children’s English books use song and dance, pretty colors, worksheets, listening tests, communication games, and partner work. They are geared towards phonics, grammar, and learning the alphabet.

3. This Is Me. ESL Wonder Workbook by Elizabeth Claire is suitable for 5 – 11 years. These children’s English books with written instructions on the side of every page are perfect for learning at home with a mentor or parent. These books will help the kids gain confidence interactively by practicing writing, reading and speaking, and alphabet practice.

4. Children’s ESL Curriculum- Learning English with Laughter by Ms. Daisy A. Stocker M.Ed. & Dr. George A. Stocker DDS is suitable for Children under 7.  These children’s English books are ESL English learning text-based books with a student book, a practice book, and a teacher guide. These books are for those kids with little to no English background.

5. ESL Beginner:  English as a Second Languageby Dianne Ramdeholl, Linda Robbian is suitable for anyone learning English at a beginner level. Experienced English teachers prepared these children’s English books. They have units dedicated to teaching grammar using skill-building exercises, worksheets, activities, and more. They also have a section “to the instructor” on how to better help children through the learning process of ESL beginner at home.

6. English for Everyone: Level 1- Beginner, Course Book: A Complete Self-Study Program byDK Publishers is suitable for anyone learning beginner English
These children’s English books incorporate vocabulary, grammar, and exercises to help beginners learn English through amusing way. These books include listening, reading, and writing to prepare the kids for future English learning exams.

7. English Made Easy Volume One- A New ESL Approach: Learning English Through Pictures byPieter Koster is suitable for learners with little or no prior English knowledge.
These children’s English books have 20 units of entertaining using pictures to understand English better. They help with vocabulary, grammar, and English as it is used in social situations.

8. Side by Side- Student Book 3, Third Edition bySteven J. Molinsky, Bill Bliss is suitable for anyone learning beginner English. These children’s English books help the kids gain knowledge in reading, writing, listening, and conversation. They have a teacher’s guide, activity book, and a prep test workbook encompassing audio, games, vocabulary picture cards, and testing programs.

9. ESL Worksheet and Activities for Kids byMiryung Pitts is suitable for 5- 8 years old kids. These children’s English books are perfect for the kids to learn beginner language at home actively. These books are full of content geared towards learning engagingly with topics like shapes, weather, numbers, days, months, time.

10. Now I’m Reading for Beginners byNora Gaydos is suitable for 4 – 8 years. These children’s English books are perfect for kids who are learning to read. Parents and mentors can help children learn pronunciation, letters, and sounds with pictures and big letters inside these books.

What are the benefits of simple English story books for kids?

It is essential to combine different teaching techniques to take advantage of every resource available. One of these ways is stories. They can promote entertainment and also expand children’s vocabulary.