Resumen de Wordless Picturebooks in Parent-Child Reading in the South African Context
Adrie Le Roux, Elmarie Costandius, Marcelyn Oostendorp
Internationally, a large volume of literature advocates the use of wordless books in literacy development, yet little research exists on their use in South African. This article reports on the influence of a participatory project in which wordless picturebooks were used in parent-child joint reading. The research was conducted within low socio-economic areas, in the South African context, and is approached from the researcher’s viewpoint as an illustrator. South Africa has a very low general reading rate, and despite a growing support for literacy development in mother tongue, there still exists a lack of indigenous language picturebooks for very young children. Using multimodal social semiotics as a theoretical departure, the article suggests that the characteristics of wordless picturebooks could contribute to developing a more positive attitude to reading in South Africa, and further investigates how wordless picturebooks could supported literacy poor parents as a child’s first educator.
