Abstract
Abstract
 The current study is a theoretical study that aims to underline the role of picture books as a serious genre of children's literature in raising children's understanding of English literature and life concepts; especially for non-English speakers. Unfortunately, most Iraqi people have developed a social phobia of learning English since childhood. This phobia is resulted from the heavy traditional reading and writing assignments as well as hard exams. Therefore, this study suggests incorporating more interesting literary material like picture books that would bring pleasure and help in raising children's love and cognition of English Language. More significantly, it calls to replace the old curriculum with a more vital one where children can interact with all their senses; visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (VAK). To make this possible, two of Eric Carle's books The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Tiny Seed have been carefully selected according to the American and English elementary school teachers' standards for children aged 3-6 years old. Each story element was submitted to a literary analysis, including pictures, life concepts, and language that enhance children's understanding of literature. Based on Piaget's view about the importance of involving sensorimotor actions in learning to help in children's cognition development, some VAK lesson plans and activities were designed using the concept development model and Synectics strategy. The study has concluded that incorporating picture books into the school curriculum and sensorimotor activities like coloring, cutting paper, games, sounds, and music would help in raising children's understanding of English literature and life science more interactively.
Highlights
Picture books are a genre of children‟s literature that relies heavily on pictures to illustrate information, like alphabet and counting books, ideas and concepts, like family, everyday experiences, and appreciating cultural diversity and literature
The importance of this study lies in encouraging creative thinking, imagination, VAK, or sensorimotor learning with fun by using picture books as a genre of literature in order to raise children's understanding of English literature and life science concepts
Children's picture books in general are so important in learning English Language and other sciences in Elementary schools for their simple language and lovely illustrations that suit the ages of the elementary schoolers
Summary
Picture books are a genre of children‟s literature that relies heavily on pictures to illustrate information, like alphabet and counting books, ideas and concepts, like family, everyday experiences, and appreciating cultural diversity and literature. It encourages educators to replace the old traditional curriculum with more active ones based on VAK senses in integrating pictures with sound and movement It provides teachers and researchers with a work map of literary analysis for the target stories and some suggested creative lesson plans and related activities based on concept development and problem-solving. The importance of this study lies in encouraging creative thinking, imagination, VAK, or sensorimotor learning with fun by using picture books as a genre of literature in order to raise children's understanding of English literature and life science concepts. The study introduces Eric Carle's philosophy and a literary analysis of each story elements and life concept It suggests some EFL lesson plans and creative activities based on certain pedagogy strategies like concept development strategy and problem-solving model (synectics) to enhance children's understanding of literature
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