Traditional illustrations fare poorly in academic study

Parents who pick their children's books on the basis of the beautiful, traditional illustrations they contain, may be holding their kids back from learning. A study out by the Universities of Queensland and Virginia suggest that very young children learn faster when the books they have contain colour photographs rather than colour drawings.

The study, admittedly on a very small group of 36 children aged 18 months, used a book to show how to make a toy rattle. Children using the photographic books rather than the books with drawing were twice as likely to work out how to perform the task than children using the books with drawings.

Gabrielle Simcock, of the University of Queensland, and Judy DeLoache, of the University of Virginia, said: "The younger the child, the more difficult it is to appreciate the relation between a symbol - a picture - and what it stands for.

"And if there is any difference between the mental image they form from looking at the picture and the real objects - as would be the case with drawings, but not photos - they failed to see them as related. So the nature of pictures in children's books can play a crucial role in learning."

The study's findings were questions by illustrators. Maybe if you want to instruct a child to do something, a clear picture is better. A child will learn in the pure sense of the word," said the National Literacy Trust's spokesperson Liz Attenborough. 'But if you want to tell a story, and stimulate the imagination, how dull is a photograph of a series of posed 'fairies' in a fairytale, for example?'

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