Comic Books Allowed in Class?: Reading with Pictures

Written by Rebecca “Bonks” Rothschild

Changing the face of the classroom text book is Reading with Pictures, a nonprofit charity that is currently shaking their tin cup and anyone who wants to support education should answer the call. This revolutionary program brings visually stimulating reading tools to educators teaching grades 3 to 6. The key to the program is the “Graphic Textbook” which features stylized art telling stories, both fiction and non-fiction, in the way that comic books do. Placed within the guides and lesson plans for teachers is a recap of the impact study overseen by Dr. David Rapp at Northwestern University outlining the proven benefits of the program.

The comic book community has been incredibly supportive. Industry favorites like Fred Van Lente, Katie Cook, Ryan Dunlavey, Janet Lee, Amy Reeder and Roger Langridge have all made contributions and I wouldn’t be surprised to see more come out of the woodwork.

The project requires funding which it hopes to receive through their Kickstarter campaign which will run through May 17th. Founder of Reading with Pictures, John Elder, made this statement to encourage potential monetary contributors:

“This project has been years in the making, and it’s been developed with input from hundreds of educators, academics and students nationwide. With their help, we’re going to create a comic that teachers will actually want to use and a textbook that students will actually want to read. And we’ve done it while respecting our contributor’s rights and keeping our product price below the gong market rate. We know that there’s a need for this product, now we just need your help to prove it.”

To make contributions to Reading with Pictures go to the official Kickstarter link, you have until May 17th to support the program and let others know about it. You can also follow them on Twitter to keep updated.

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Rebecca "Bonks" Rothschild

Co-Founding Editor at Sugar Gamers (CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HER!)

Rebecca, a.k.a Bonks can't live without her FPS video games. She reads a ton of comics and loves all things Sci-Fi. Rebecca is also the writer for our exclusive web comic "Shero & Vex."