University academics are concerned because ______. A. young people are showing less interest in higher education B. students cannot understand modem academic texts C. academic books are too childish for their undergraduates D. there has been a significant change in student literacy
As they grow older, many children turn aside from books without pictures, and it is a situation made more serious as our culture becomes more visual. It is hard to wean children off picture books when pictures have played a major part throughout their formative reading experiences, and when there is competition for their attention from so many other sources of entertainment. The least intelligent are most vulnerable, but tests show that even intelligent children are being affected. The response of educators has been to extend the use of pictures in books and to simplify the language, even at senior levels. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge recently held joint conferences to discuss the noticeably rapid decline in literacy among their undergraduates. Pictures are also used to help motivate children to read because they are beautiful and eye-catching. But motivation to read should be provided by listening to stories well read, where children imagine in response to the story. Then, as they start to read, they have this experience to help them understand the language, If we present pictures to save children the trouble of developing these creative skills, then I think we are making a great mistake.Academic journals ranging from educational research, psychology, language learning, psycholinguistic, and so on cite experiments, which demonstrate how detrimental picture are for beginner readers, Here is a brief selection: The research results of the Canadian educationalist Dale Willows were clear and consistent pictures affected speed and accuracy and the closer the pictures were to the words, the slower and more inaccurate the child’s reading became. She claims that when children come to a word they already know, then the pictures are unnecessary and distracting. If they do not know a word and look to the pictures, which are not closely related to the meaning of the word, they are trying to understand. Jay Samuels, an American psychologist, found that poor readers given no pictures learnt significantly more words than those learning to read with books with pictures. He examined the work of other researchers who reported problems with the use of pictures and who had found that a word without a picture was superior to a word plus a picture. When children were given words and pictures, those who seemed to ignore the pictures and pointed at the words learnt more words than the children who pointed at the pictures, but they still learnt fewer words than the children who had no illustrated stimuli at all.