The influence of illustrations on children's comprehension of written stories

In Australian schools, comparisons were made of the story recall of 70 average readers in grade five under five picture-text conditions: the absence of a picture; two conditions in which three normal, related pictures were presented before or after related text; and two conditions in which three composite, related pictures were presented before or after related text. Recalls were scored according to Frederiksen's (1975) system of text analysis. An observable trend in group means, suggesting that pictures aided recall, did not reach significance, and neither picture placement nor picture composition influenced comprehension. The absence of an advantage for the picture conditions may have been due to the ability of grade five readers to extract sufficient information from the text alone. The second study made similar comparisons with 48 younger grade three children. Again, an observed advantage for the picture conditions did not reach significance. An experiments-by-conditions analysis over both studies indicated that illustrations did significantly improve performance, but that picture placement (before or after related text) did not affect recall. A final experiment examined the influence of further picture-text relationships on comprehension ( N=80). Variables examined were the number of pictures (three or eight) and the type of picture (normal or composite). In contrast to the previous studies, pictures were situated adjacent to related text. While there were clear differences in recall favouring the picture groups, there was no advantage for the number of pictures or the type of picture. It was concluded that the influence of illustrations on comprehension was small for children of normal reading ability and depended to a large extent on their placement adjacent to related textual material.