Developing Children's Critical Thinking through Picturebooks

by Mary Roche

This accessible text will show students and class teachers how they can enable their pupils to become critical thinkers through the medium of picturebooks. By introducing children to the notion of making-meaning together through thinking and discussion, Roche focuses on carefully chosen picturebooks as a stimulus for discussion, and shows how they can constitute an accessible, multimodal resource for adding to literacy skills, while at the same time developing in pupils a far wider range of literary understanding. By allowing time for thinking about and digesting the pictures as well as the text, and then engaging pupils in classroom discussion, this book highlights a powerful means of developing children’s oral language ability, critical thinking, and visual literacy, while also acting as a rich resource for developing children’s literary understanding. Throughout, Roche provides rich data and examples from real classroom practice. This book also provides an overview of recent international research on doing ‘interactive read alouds’, on what critical literacy means, on what critical thinking means and on picturebooks themselves. Lecturers on teacher education courses for early years or primary levels, classroom teachers, pre-service education students, and all those interested in promoting critical engagement and dialogue about literature will find this an engaging and very insightful text.

210 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Mrs G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, but should come with a health warning: you will spend a small fortune on picturebooks. A fantastic read full of wisdom. I loved hearing the children's voices throughout. A primary teacher must-read.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you understand what a rich resource quality children’s picture books are and you value critical thinking and dialogue, Mary Roche has written a valuable guide. It’s clear she’s an expert at facilitating open-ended conversation based on well selected picturebooks, then stepping back and letting the children do all the hard thinking work. Curriculum documents I know stress the importance of creative and critical thinking and this is what Roche is centred on: making connections, exploring a range of perspectives, identifying assumptions and bias, because the purpose of education is not simply about passing tests, but for developing caring citizens and passionate lifelong learners. And this process starts early. And it's fun, and challenging and exciting for all! If you’ve taught young students, it’s clear from early on the students who've been exposed to this kind of thinking and those who haven't. An aspect I appreciate about this book is the focus on equity; that all children can develop the capacity to think critically and share observations though Book Talk, not just the dominant, articulate few. I also like the author’s attention to culturally diverse classrooms. If the children in our classrooms come from a range of backgrounds, the books we read should reflect that diversity (p. 160).

There’s much in this book of practical and theoretical value. Roche has included transcripts of conversations with groups of children and I found them useful for illustrating her thinking. She uses these conversations to make explicit her ideas on metacognition and dialogic teaching and there is nothing for the education student or beginning teacher to fear in terms of being burdened with excessive theory. To be honest I’m partial to a nice bit of theory, but Roche strikes a great balance. Her picture book lists are a wonderful feature also. They’re up to date but include many old favourites. I recommend this book to all those who believe they have room for growth with developing talk and higher order thinking skills with young people.

[Mairéad · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 A well structured, highly accessible explanation of how teachers (and parents) can develop children's literacy skills, encourage engagement with reading, promote enjoyment of books and foster a cooperative atmosphere in the classroom through CT&BT (Critical Thinking and Book Talk). The samples of children's engagement with CT&BT in each chapter are delightful and inspiring to read, the research behind the methodology really speaks for itself. The list of suggested picture books at the end is excellent also.

[Megan Dowd · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent academic resource about picture books and dialogic reading. Wonderful references to the author's experience of using her Critical Thinking and Book Talk methods with children and educators are given ample critical context. I am thrilled to add this to my While Book Approach syllabus as a companion to my book, Reading Picture Books with Children: How to Shake Up Storytime and Get Kids Talking About What They See (Charlesbridge 2015).

[Ben Trevail · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book advocating the power of picturebooks to develop oral language, vocabulary and critical thinking skills. Contains strong arguments for using this approach to ensure that when children start reading more complex texts they have the language and understanding to cope and enjoy. Highly recommend for all Primary practitioners.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This changed the way I view reading picture books. The results with children were astounding and so rewarding. Agree with a previous reviewer....this book should come with a warning about how much you'll spend buying picture books, but they will be the ones you'll read and reread. Money well spent!

[Sabastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guide for Primary and Early Years Students and Teachers is a book that helps children develop a critical thinking skillset by teaching them how to think critically about what they are reading. It does this through the use of picturebooks that incorporate different types of text, including dialogue, narration and description.
The plot of this book follows a young boy named Cole who is struggling to teach his younger brother how to ride his bike. His brother is determined to learn as soon as possible but Cole has trouble getting him on the bike because he doesn't know how. However, eventually they are able to ride together because Cole teaches his brother how to use his own body weight as leverage when pushing down on the pedals.
This book would be appealing to young readers because it contains colorful illustrations that depict scenes from everyday life with characters that look like they could be real people instead of just drawings. There are also plenty of opportunities for children to discuss issues such as bullying or divorce in this book which makes it even more interesting because there are no right or wrong answers when discussing these topics but instead there are different opinions on what happened in each situation which allows children an opportunity to learn about others' perspectives without feeling judged or reprimanded for their own thoughts.

[Summer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really enjoyable to read. I felt like I was learning so much. The best parts were when Roche gave practical advice on the best ways to conduct discussions on books and highlighted her own shortcomings that she had to work on e.g. talking too much and interrupting the children and conversely stated that it is important to let the children state their interpretations and build on each other's ideas, not interrupt them and not coherce or force the children to participate. She discussed particular books, and I was so happy and grateful that she had created a list of books she reccommended at the end of the book, because reading some of the discussions around some of the books she mentioned made me want to read them.

I would highly reccommend.