Picture Books, Imagination and Play: Pathways to Positive Reading Identities for Young Children

Abstract

Picture books are part of many young children’s lives, whether at home or in early childhood or school settings. Their unique creative combinations of words and visual images can engage children’s attention, stimulate their imagination, and support their development as meaning-makers. Nurturing a love of books in young children can foster the development not only of early literacy skills, but also positive reading identities. Early childhood educators therefore have key roles to play as selectors, analysts and mediators of picture books. This article aims to build educators’ awareness of these roles through the analytical discussion of a small group of picture books selected for their focus on children’s imaginative worlds. Children need to see themselves in books, and given that play and imagination are central to young children’s ways of being and learning, picture books about children engaged in imagination and play can be important resources for nurturing a love of reading and fostering positive reading identities in young children. This pedagogical position paper explores a small sample of such books and discusses their value as part of early literacy curriculum.

Socialisation of children to nurse and nursing images: A Goffman‐inspired thematic analysis of children's picture books in a Swedish context

“…Picture books, with their combinations of words and visual images, can engage children's attention, stimulate their imagination and support their development as meaning-makers. Picture books can also function as a social eyeopener for children as the 'real' world gets described-here nurses, nursing and encounters in healthcare-including social values, norms, social hierarchies and functions, as ways for children to interpret and understand society (Botelho & Rudman, 2009;Niland, 2023).…”

“…Only a quarter of the included books were translated from another language to Swedish, without any representatives from the Scandinavian brother countries, Norway and Denmark. Moreover, picture books foster the development of early literacy skills and positive reading identities (Niland, 2023). One may however ponder over the external audience's reception-here understood as children and their caretakers-of the depicted/ described nurses' roles and performances and how it affects their understanding of nurses and nursing.…”

Pages of potential: an action research study of the affordances and constraints of using picture books as tools to deepen adult senses of identity and belonging

“…Early childhood educators select, analyze and mediate which books are present, and how they are experienced by young readers; these are choices that when well-made can lay the foundation for children to develop positive reading identities (Niland, 2023). Picture books are present and often used both in whole classroom settings, and in small groups for targeted instruction.…”