Analysis and evaluation of a didactic strategy to take advantage of non-fiction picture books in Primary Education

Abstract

This paper analyses and evaluates a didactic strategy devised to exploit non-fiction picture books. We start from the initial assumption that the organisation, design and style of many of these works turn learning into a vivid experience, as opposed to the more expository and cold approach of the textbook, provided that the mediation process takes advantage of the aesthetic and playful component they contain. To this end, we have developed an action-research process (Elliott, 1993) that analyses the results of a didactic intervention with a 3rd grade Primary school group, based on the book Find Tom in Time: Ancient Egypt, by Crow and Burke (2019), which we have already analysed in a previous work following the criteria of the Orbis Pictus Award Committee (Sanjuán and Cristóbal, 2022). The didactic procedure is based on the guided conversation model proposed by Tough (1976 and 1979) for the development of cognitive structures in children, on the consideration of the relevance of the emotional processes of reading and learning by Kesler (2012) and Sanjuán (2013), as well as on Bandura's (1976) concept of modelled social learning. The results indicate that the didactic strategy developed adds numerous emotional components to the cognitive processes of learning, stimulates attitudes of enquiry, creativity and play, and simultaneously favours sensory and linguistic development.