A Picture Book Is Worth a Thousand Words　一册绘本抵千字

A Picture Book Is Worth a Thousand Words

一册绘本抵千字

Erin Ganju

埃琳·甘朱

作者简介

埃琳·甘朱（Erin Ganju），“阅读之家”（Room to Read）组织的创始成员兼首席执行官。“阅读之家”是公益教育组织，旨在让更多孩子学会读写，减小地区和经济差异带来的教育上的不平等，改变发展中国家数百万孩子的命运。“阅读之家”的目标是在2015年将1亿孩子纳入计划。目前，“阅读之家”已在世界各地建立了1000多所学校和上万个图书馆，并资助无数孩子接受教育。

本文是2010年10月13日甘朱在“阅读之家”官方博客上发表的文章，用于回应《纽约时报》（The New York Times）关于儿童书的报道。作者认为绘本对孩子的成长至关重要，绝非普通人理解的那样，只是“傻瓜读物”。她还建议父母陪孩子一起阅读，引发孩子对阅读的兴趣。培养爱书之心，必须“从娃娃抓起”。你认为呢？

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.

我们一直梦想有那么一天，《纽约时报》头版能刊登关于儿童书的报道。儿童书是我们“阅读之家”存在的理由，因为它们有助于提升孩子的读写和学习能力。我们深信，这些能力将改变世界和整整一代贫困人口，在发展中国家和地区尤其如此。

不幸的是，《纽约时报》的报道和我们预想的相去甚远，它关注的是绘本销量下滑。在经济萧条的情况下，这并不奇怪。奇怪的是，销量下滑并不是因为孩子们不再喜欢色彩缤纷的绘本，而是因为家长不再认可绘本对于提高孩子读写能力的价值。

显然，家长开始强迫自己上幼儿园或一年级的孩子丢开绘本，去读文字更多的“章节书”。一位儿童书出版商注意到，过去几年中绘本的销量下滑了35％。根据业内观点，造成这种现象的首要原因是家长带来的压力，家长非常关注学校里日益严苛的标准化考试。

事实上，我们在许多发展中国家见过相反的实例。在那些地方，绘本（或故事书）仍对培养孩子扎实的读写功底和终生学习能力起着关键作用。在“阅读之家”开展工作的斯里兰卡、南非和其他国家，许多孩子在口述故事的传统中长大，从口语转化到书面语的过程十分艰难。许多孩子从来没有听过别人给他们大声念书，他们觉得把字音和字形联系起来很困难。

绘本有助于弥补这个缺陷，因为它们让孩子在故事和角色中去探索、发现、学习和想象。书籍提供并传递知识，对提高孩子的阅读能力十分关键。阅读能力包括认识音素、看字读音、流畅阅读、词汇量和理解能力。绘本能带孩子开启这段旅程，因为它们将眼睛看和嘴巴说结合起来，通常生动地展现了孩子们的日常生活，有助于他们将自己的生活和图画、信息、事件、文字联系起来。除此之外，通过讨论他们在书里看到的故事，孩子还可以发问——这同样有助于提高他们的表达能力，而表达能力也是读写能力的关键要素。

这篇文章引用了读写专家的话，他们敏锐地指出“绘本不是傻瓜读物”，并称赞绘本有助于提高孩子的批判思维能力。作为一个4岁半孩子的母亲，我对此完全赞同。

我女儿朱莉娅在给毛绒玩具（她的超级听故事粉丝）讲故事时，喜欢把绘本当作故事的灵感来源。我们会在公园边的图书馆待上一天，她会挑选下一周要看的10～15本书。她花在挑书上的时间和在游乐场里玩耍的时间差不多。她喜欢带有许多插图的书，因为看图“读”故事让她觉得自己挺独立。现在，朱莉娅在睡前常常想给我读个故事。看见她越来越喜欢阅读，我真是快乐无比。对她来说，阅读不是任务或必须做的事，而是和玩耍一样的事。这是关键，因为孩子将阅读视为乐事，是培养终生读者、独立读者的起始。

“阅读之家”致力于教育事业，而孩子很早就能读“章节书”显然是件很棒的事。但如果只为了培养技能，过早强迫孩子达到某一水平，就可能无法培养他们良好的阅读习惯。所以我们提醒好心的父母，别急着清空孩子的故事书架。因为在这么做的时候，你也在清除孩子可能终身获益的阅读习惯。来吧，让我们一起努力，培养喜爱读书、边读边学的一代独立读者。

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孩子将阅读视为乐事，是培养终生读者、独立读者的起始。

Erin Ganju 埃琳·甘朱

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