Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions about the Effectiveness of the TOON Comic Books in Their Guided Reading Instruction

Abstract

Recently, education and literacy researchers have acknowledged educational merit in guided reading that incorporates interactive and authentic reading texts, such as graphic novels, which meet the needs of today’s predominantly multimodal learners (Jennings, Rule, & Zanden, 2014; Kist & Pytash, 2015). This qualitative study explores through interviews and a questionnaire the perceptions of pre-service teachers about the effectiveness of the comic book series known as TOON comics in guided reading with struggling readers and writers, from kindergarten through fifth grade. Pre-service teachers have expressed positive views concerning the use of these comic books in guided reading instruction with their struggling readers and writers. They plan to use this comic book series in the classroom in the future and they offer suggestions for addressing the challenges this genre may bring to their students.

Keywords

• comic books
• guided reading
• teacher preparation
• struggling readers and writers