Education Article Review About Children’s Literature (Article Sample)

Review of Children’s Literature
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Review of Children’s Literature
Overview
This research was performed to analyze 4 multimodal texts with a common theme, which is relevant to children between the ages of 3 and 4 years old. The theme was obtained from the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework. In addition, the topic should be relevant to one of the 5 learning outcomes for children. For this analysis, pre-kindergarten children were considered, and the motivation came after observing the kids who were enthusiastic and engaged when reading using multimodal texts (Anstey & Bull, 2010). The engagement was caused by the texts’ specific modes: visual, aural, gestural, performance, music, and verbal (Hunt, 1994). Multi-modal texts are essential in teaching, as they enable students to realize the existence of many forms of literacy apart from the written one. A total of four multimodal texts were discussed: bear hunt song, Toontastic (Personal $ School Edition), nursery rhyme comics, and fairy tale comics as well as a spooky walk text.
The curriculum topic that was chosen for this analysis is responsibility. The term responsibility is defined as the act of being accountable (Scott-Little et al., 2006). It is a requirement for children to be taught to be responsible during their tender age to ensure that they become responsible citizens in the future. Research has shown that many responsible adults have learned this virtue when they were small children (Scott-Little et al., 2006). This topic relates to early years learning framework, since children will learn to be responsible. Possessing the discussed quality illustrates that the kids will be able to take care of themselves, their country, and the environment.
The Bear Hunt Text
Quality of the Text
This text of the bear hunt was written by Michael Rosen, a British author, and Helen Oxenbury, an illustrator. The text is both captivating and motivational in terms of promoting reading for kids. The story is an imaginative look at a family that goes on a bear hunt. The book uses textual and artistic elements. For example, different colors are used for the pictures and the background. The colors are employed to pass different messages for the reader. The artistic elements utilized in the book include illustrations painted in watercolor. The black and white pages consist of repeated lines of the story, which give the reader an insight of the consecutive pages. Notably, the different colors were employed to describe the feelings of the characters. For example, to show the characters’ excitement, a bright color was used, whereas to emphasize the fear, the author applied a deep color. The text also uses songs and rhyme, which facilitate children to read the book.
(Rosen & Oxenbury, 1989)
(Rosen & Oxenbury, 1989)
As shown above, the illustrations are full bleed with double-page spreads, which is known to expand the visual perception of the readers. Further, the text uses facial expressions of the characters to create impressions of worry, anxiousness, excitement, and fear. Notably, the use of gestures gives the reader an opportunity to imagine being one of the characters (Bezemer & Kress, 2008). The latter facilitates the participation of the readers in the text, which assists in better understanding.
(Rosen & Oxenbury, 1989)
The summary above illustrates that different modes were employed in the text; for example, gestures, images, visual and language. The various modes work together well, in which visual was facilitated by the use of images, as shown above. The images employ features and facial expressions to convey necessary information. The authors utilize repetition to create rhyme and promote reading for children. The different modes add the efficient elements to the story by making the entire exercise and involving. The text is appealing to children aged 3-5 years because of the adventurous and impressionistic nature of the story. Further, the text makes use of simple language, which the toddlers find easy to read and understand.
Lastly, as explained earlier, the layout of the book involves the use of images and the use of different colors. Thus, it can be said that the layout is child-friendly. At the age of 3-5, children are fascinated with pictures as opposed to long paragraphs (O'Halloran & Smith, 2012). The authors of the story made use of that feature, as most of the content is pictorial.
How Does the Test Enhance the Children’s Understanding of the Theme of Responsibility?
The bear hunt song, which is very popular among the pre-kindergarten kids, can help the children to be responsible. In particular, the song begins with some adults weeding a flower garden, which advises to the children that they should always strive to do something during their free time. Besides, the song describes the hunt and the dangers involved. The various gestures used interest children who participate in singing and dancing. The song makes use of performances that kids find fascinating, and they participate in the song. Further, the use of audio sound and lyrics encourage visual literacy. The latter in turn facilitates learning (Zipes, 2005). As mentioned previously, the song will foster responsibility to children and will encourage teamwork. The bear hunt song shows that if the hunters worked as a team, they would have captured the bear. Besides, the song promotes adequate communication. By following the narration, one will notice that the hunters went to the wrong cave and they did not catch any bear, probably because of the poor communication among the team members. Lastly, the song promotes the spirit of winning. The narrator finishes by stating that they will organize for another hunt, which they deem will be successful.
The text facilitates development of spoken and written English for the children. The author uses simple words available for further writing practice. For the case of spoken English, the small kinds have an opportunity to read the story load, which enhances their pronunciation skills.
Nursery Rhyme Comics
Quality of the Text
Numerous nursery rhyme comics are utilized by children to sharpen spoken and written English. For this particular analysis, the nursery rhyme comic known as ‘Town-Mouse part 1’ was employed. The text employs the following modes: images, simple language, color, gestures, and sounds.
The modes work together properly because the use of simple language helps kids to understand the context of the story. The colors and symbols such as the moon show that the event was occurring at night. The author employs gestures and sounds to portray a certain feeling. For example, in the excerpt below, the writer makes use of sounds and gestures to show how the character was frightening by the ordeal.
(Bender & Lourie, 1941)
The different modes used in the text make it easy to understand for the children. The story involves three characters. Therefore, children can assume their roles in the text. The actual participation of the kids will make the entire exercise educative and fun (Tabachnick, 2009). The images utilized promote creation of mental pictures of the events and the scenes where the story takes place (Tabachnick, 2009). The author uses dogs and mice as the characters for the story. Children are always fascinated by the two animals. Therefore, the use of animal characters in the story also attracts children to the text.
The text layout is child-friendly. First, the authors made sure that the text was very short. Children are known to become bored easily, and they might lose concentration when reading a long story (Bezemer & Kress, 2008). The author keeps this story as short as possible. It has only two pages with more pictures, as compared to the word paragraphs, as shown below.
(Bender & Lourie, 1941)
(Bender & Lourie, 1941)
How Does the Test Enhance the Children’s Understanding of the Theme of Responsibility?
In the story, it is evident that the town mouse misleads another mouse by cheating him that he will show him how to live in town. The town mouse leads the other one that happens to be his cousin to steal food. However, in the act, they interact with dogs barking at them and chasing them away. After the entire ordeal, the mouse that was misled comes back to his senses, and he decides to leave his cousin and live his own peaceful life. The story teaches kids that as they grow up, they will encounter the issue of peer pressure, which in most cases is misleading. Therefore, the texts foster the virtue of responsibility to the kids such that when they grow up, they will be able to make the right decisions and that they will not be influenced by their friends.
As mentioned earlier, the story encourages role-playing, where the kids can assume the roles of the characters and actively participate in the story. This involvement will help build the speaking skills of the children (Bender & Lourie, 1941). In addition, the simple language employed in the text will assist the kids in learning grammar, punctuation, and spelling of some English words (Robbins, 1994). Therefore, the discussed type of the text also promotes learning of the important qualities through the use of appealing visual and meaning content that engages children into active participation.
Toontastic (Personal & School Edition)
Quality of the Text
Toontastic is a form of a digital text that has become very popular globally. It is a mobile application that enables kids to create various things with minimum effort. The technology allows children to drag characters and objects on the screen to create anything of interest.
(Sallnäs, 2002)
The software makes use of the following modes which work together to ensure the success of the...