“It's Me. I'm Fixin’ to Know the Hard Words”: Children's Perceptions of “Good Readers” as Portrayed in Their Representational Drawings

Abstract

This study utilized a qualitative, interpretative, analytic technique based on image-based research. This descriptive study was designed to investigate children's perceptions of “good readers” as portrayed in their representational drawings. Children in grades kindergarten through 6, 156 total, in 14 schools in a small, rural school district in the southwestern United States were interviewed using a picture protocol format. The participants included high-, middle-, and low-reading ability students. As the drawings and the children's descriptions of their drawings were viewed across the grades from kindergarten through 6th grade, discernible trends were evident from the categories of people, artifacts, settings, and affective issues in the images. Additionally, the children's verbal descriptions of their “good reader” while drawing yielded five major categories of data: (1) decoding; (2) comprehension, remembering facts and details or strategy use; (3) looking at pictures; (4) neatness, attention to treatment of books; and (5) reading behavior.