Comics helpful as teaching tools

Comic books can be used to teach slow readers, the pictures help them associate with the words. DP

By Kevin Lynch

madison.com: Comics and graphic books have made big inroads into mainstream education.

"They've found that comics are massively helpful in getting kids to learn to read," says Bruce Ayers, owner of Capital City Comics at 1910 Monroe St.

"You can give kids something above their reading level, and if you do it with pictures they can absorb it much more readily, because they can associate the picture with the word.

"It's a very important tool," emphasizes the owner of the state's oldest comic shop, "particularly when dealing with immigrants in getting them to absorb the language faster."

Graphic novels can help slow or dyslexic readers, agrees Dave Hoon, an English teacher in the School Age Parent Program, a middle and high school alternative program housed in Marquette Elementary School.

"But they have to be done well," he adds. The quality is important because the position of the graphic novel is complicated in education, says Hoon, who uses them in his English classes.

But graphic novels can help teach formal concepts like archetypes: "the kinds of characters they've seen since they were young, or basic story types, which most books are variations on, or the idea that movies, TV shows and even telephone books are texts," Hoon explains.