A Picture Book Is Worth a Thousand Words　一冊繪本抵千字

A Picture Book Is Worth a Thousand Words

一冊繪本抵千字

Erin Ganju

埃琳·甘朱

作者簡介

埃琳·甘朱（Erin Ganju），“閱讀之家”（Room to Read）組織的創(chuàng)始成員兼首席執(zhí)行官。“閱讀之家”是公益教育組織，旨在讓更多孩子學會讀寫，減小地區(qū)和經濟差異帶來的教育上的不平等，改變發(fā)展中國家數百萬孩子的命運。“閱讀之家”的目標是在2015年將1億孩子納入計劃。目前，“閱讀之家”已在世界各地建立了1000多所學校和上萬個圖書館，并資助無數孩子接受教育。

本文是2010年10月13日甘朱在“閱讀之家”官方博客上發(fā)表的文章，用于回應《紐約時報》（The New York Times）關于兒童書的報道。作者認為繪本對孩子的成長至關重要，絕非普通人理解的那樣，只是“傻瓜讀物”。她還建議父母陪孩子一起閱讀，引發(fā)孩子對閱讀的興趣。培養(yǎng)愛書之心，必須“從娃娃抓起”。你認為呢？

We've long dreamt about the day the front page of The New York Times runs a story on children's books. Children's books are what we live and breathe at Room to Read because of what they contribute to the development of a child's literacy and learning skills. It's what we believe has the power to change the world and entire generations of communities living in poverty, particularly in the developing world.

Unfortunately, The New York Times' story wasn't exactly what we had envisioned, as it centered on the loss of retail sales of picture books. In a down economy, that's not surprising. What was surprising is that the decline in sales isn't because children are no longer drawn to colorfully illustrated tomes; rather because parents are no longer recognizing the value picture books have in catalyzing their children's literacy skills development.

Apparently, parents have begun pressing their kindergartners and first-graders to leave the picture books behind and move on to more text-heavy “chapter books.”One children's book publisher noted a 35 percent drop in the number of picture books published in the last few years. The primary reason, according to those in the industry, is pressure from parents who are very mindful of increasingly rigorous standardized testing in schools.

We've actually seen the opposite hold true in developing nations, where picture books (or story books) remain a crucial tool in laying a solid foundation for literacy and life-long learning among children. In places like Sri Lanka, South Africa and other countries where Room to Read works, many children come from largely oral storytelling traditions and the shift to the written word is a difficult transition. Many of these children have never been read to aloud, and they find it difficult to relate the “spoken”word to the “written”word.

Picture books help bridge this gap because they give children the opportunity to explore, discover, learn, and imagine through stories and characters. Books inform and transfer knowledge, and are critical to the development of a child's reading skills—including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Picture books kick-start that journey because they combine visual and verbal narratives, often presenting imagery from children's everyday lives which helps them connect life experiences to the pictures, information, events, and text. Even more, by discussing what they see in story books, children ask questions—which also helps develop their speaking skills, a key component of literacy.

Literacy experts quoted in the news article were quick to point out that picture books are not for dummies, and they praise the genre for helping develop a child's critical thinking skills. As a mother of a four-and-a-half-year-old, I couldn't agree more.

My daughter Julia loves to use picture books as the basis of inspiration for story time with her captivated audience of stuffed animals. We'll make a day of going to the library next to the park, and she will spend as much time selecting her next 10-15 books for the week as she does running around the playground. She loves books with lots of pictures because it gives her a sense of independence to “read”the story through the pictures. Now, at bedtime, Julia often wants to read me a story, and it's my greatest joy to see her develop an enjoyment of reading—reading is not a task or something she has to do, but something she does for play. And that's key because the path to creating lifelong, independent readers starts when children see reading as fun and pleasurable on their own.

At Room to Read we're committed to education, and so obviously, it's a wonderful thing that children are able to read chapter books at an early age. But if you focus on just the skills part and prematurely force children to get to a certain level, it may be at the cost of developing good habits of reading. So we caution well-intentioned parents against hurrying to clear their kids' bookshelf of story books, because in doing so, you're clearing away the potential for a connection to books that children will cherish their entire lives. Instead, let's work to develop a generation of independent readers who love to read, and read to learn.

我們一直夢想有那么一天，《紐約時報》頭版能刊登關于兒童書的報道。兒童書是我們“閱讀之家”存在的理由，因為它們有助于提升孩子的讀寫和學習能力。我們深信，這些能力將改變世界和整整一代貧困人口，在發(fā)展中國家和地區(qū)尤其如此。

不幸的是，《紐約時報》的報道和我們預想的相去甚遠，它關注的是繪本銷量下滑。在經濟蕭條的情況下，這并不奇怪。奇怪的是，銷量下滑并不是因為孩子們不再喜歡色彩繽紛的繪本，而是因為家長不再認可繪本對于提高孩子讀寫能力的價值。

顯然，家長開始強迫自己上幼兒園或一年級的孩子丟開繪本，去讀文字更多的“章節(jié)書”。一位兒童書出版商注意到，過去幾年中繪本的銷量下滑了35％。根據業(yè)內觀點，造成這種現象的首要原因是家長帶來的壓力，家長非常關注學校里日益嚴苛的標準化考試。

事實上，我們在許多發(fā)展中國家見過相反的實例。在那些地方，繪本（或故事書）仍對培養(yǎng)孩子扎實的讀寫功底和終生學習能力起著關鍵作用。在“閱讀之家”開展工作的斯里蘭卡、南非和其他國家，許多孩子在口述故事的傳統(tǒng)中長大，從口語轉化到書面語的過程十分艱難。許多孩子從來沒有聽過別人給他們大聲念書，他們覺得把字音和字形聯系起來很困難。

繪本有助于彌補這個缺陷，因為它們讓孩子在故事和角色中去探索、發(fā)現、學習和想象。書籍提供并傳遞知識，對提高孩子的閱讀能力十分關鍵。閱讀能力包括認識音素、看字讀音、流暢閱讀、詞匯量和理解能力。繪本能帶孩子開啟這段旅程，因為它們將眼睛看和嘴巴說結合起來，通常生動地展現了孩子們的日常生活，有助于他們將自己的生活和圖畫、信息、事件、文字聯系起來。除此之外，通過討論他們在書里看到的故事，孩子還可以發(fā)問——這同樣有助于提高他們的表達能力，而表達能力也是讀寫能力的關鍵要素。

這篇文章引用了讀寫專家的話，他們敏銳地指出“繪本不是傻瓜讀物”，并稱贊繪本有助于提高孩子的批判思維能力。作為一個4歲半孩子的母親，我對此完全贊同。

我女兒朱莉婭在給毛絨玩具（她的超級聽故事粉絲）講故事時，喜歡把繪本當作故事的靈感來源。我們會在公園邊的圖書館待上一天，她會挑選下一周要看的10～15本書。她花在挑書上的時間和在游樂場里玩耍的時間差不多。她喜歡帶有許多插圖的書，因為看圖“讀”故事讓她覺得自己挺獨立。現在，朱莉婭在睡前常常想給我讀個故事?？匆娝絹碓较矚g閱讀，我真是快樂無比。對她來說，閱讀不是任務或必須做的事，而是和玩耍一樣的事。這是關鍵，因為孩子將閱讀視為樂事，是培養(yǎng)終生讀者、獨立讀者的起始。

“閱讀之家”致力于教育事業(yè)，而孩子很早就能讀“章節(jié)書”顯然是件很棒的事。但如果只為了培養(yǎng)技能，過早強迫孩子達到某一水平，就可能無法培養(yǎng)他們良好的閱讀習慣。所以我們提醒好心的父母，別急著清空孩子的故事書架。因為在這么做的時候，你也在清除孩子可能終身獲益的閱讀習慣。來吧，讓我們一起努力，培養(yǎng)喜愛讀書、邊讀邊學的一代獨立讀者。

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孩子將閱讀視為樂事，是培養(yǎng)終生讀者、獨立讀者的起始。

Erin Ganju 埃琳·甘朱

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