Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Comic book research

" … Krashen … and a colleague found that 7th grade boys who were avid comics readers also tended to read more books, regardless of whether they were middle-class, suburban students or low-income students from an inner-city school."
(Ed Week, Feb 11, 2008, "Scholars see comics as no laughing matter")

Credit where credit is due: The colleague is Joanne Ujiie, who was first author of this study. The paper mentioned in the article is: Ujiie, J. and Krashen, S. 1996. Comic book reading, reading enjoyment, and pleasure reading among middle class and chapter I middle school students. Reading Improvement 33,1: 51-54. (available at www.sdkrashen.com)

Several other Ujiie papers deal with the issue of "light reading" and may be of interest.:
Ujiie, J. and Krashen, S. 2002. Home run books and reading enjoyment. Knowledge Quest 31(1): 36-37.
Ujiie, J. and Krashen, S. 2005. Is acclaimed children’s literature popular among children? A secondary analysis of Nilson, Peterson, and Seafoss. Knowledge Quest 34(1): 39-40.
Krashen, S, and Ujiie, J. 2005. Junk food is bad for you, but junk reading is good for you. International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 1,3: 5-12. (www.ijflt.com)
Ujiie, J. and Krashen, S. 2006. Are prize-winning books popular among children? An anlaysis of public library circulation. Knowledge Quest 34 (3): 33-35.


ARTICLE at: http://www.edweek.org//ew/articles/2009/02/11/21comics_ep.h28.html

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