Our results, however, leave us with some questions. Surprisingly, children from the chapter 1 school reported just as much comic book reading as more affluent children. Comics are very expensive, typically costing $1.00 to $1.50. Either these children have found a less expensive source, or, despite the cost, they are buying them, which is evidence for the attractiveness of comics.

We did not attempt to determine whether comic book readers are better readers, but there is reason to suspect that they are; given the consistent relationship found in the professional literature between frequency of reading and reading ability (Krashen, 1993), and the finding that comic book readers like reading more and read more.

We also found that chapter 1 boys are not, however, reading as much in general as boys from the middle class school, nor do they enjoy reading as much. One reason this is true, we suspect, is that reading material is not as readily available to the less affluent. Despite this lack of access, however, comic book readers from the chapter 1 school still manage to read more than their peers, and even read more than non comic book readers from the middle class school (e.g. Chapter 1 heavy comic readers read significantly more than middle class non comic readers; data from table 2. chi square = 10.806, df = 2, p < .01). More access to books, we predict, would result in even greater differences between comic and noncomic book readers for less affluent children.

Finally, we did not attempt to determine which comic books were read. There is large variability in reading level of comic books. Archie, for example, is written at the second grade level, while some of the superhero comics are written at the fifth and sixth grade level (Wright, 1979). It remains to be determined whether different kinds of comic book reading relate to school environment, book reading, and reading ability.

References

Bailyn, L. (1959). Mass media and children: A study of exposure habits and cognitive effects. Psychological Monographs, 73, 201-216.

Comic Shop News (1994). Boy, were we surprised! December 14, 1994. Marieta, Georgia.

Hayes, D. and Ahrens, M. (1988). Vocabulary simplification for children: A special case of "motherese"? Journal of Child language, 15, 395-410.

Heisler, F. (1947). A comparison of comic book and non-comic book readers of the elementary school. Journal of Educational Research, 40, 458-464

Kirsch, I., Jungebut, A., Jenkins, L., and Kolstad, A. (1993). Adult literacy in America. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education.

Krashen, S. (1993). The power of reading. Englewood, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited.

Mathabane, M. (1986). Kaffir boy. New York: Plume.

Swain, E. (1948). Using comic books to teach reading and language arts. Journal of Reading, 22, 253-258.

Witty, P. (1941). Reading the comics: A comparative study. Journal of Experimental Education, 10, 105-106.

Wright, G. (1979). The comic book: A forgotten medium in the classroom. Reading Teacher, 33, 158-161.

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