The Application Of Picture Books As Reading Textbooks In Primary School English Teaching

Under the National English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2011 edition),English-teaching in elementary schools must develop students’ comprehension of both pictures and words.The standard requires students to use simple words and pictures to guess the general meaning of the story.Therefore,we know that at the primary level,students’ English reading skills should receive more attention from their teachers to be properly developed.The ultimate aim of English learning in primary school is to spark students’ interest in learning English as well as to foster students’ mindset of English language,so as to lay a solid foundation for further study in English.Hence,how to stimulate the interest of primary school students in English learning has grown to a key target of English teaching in primary school.Reading ability is an important embodiment of language ability,and it is the foundation for everyone’s learning.Childhood is a critical period because it’s the best time to develop reading skills and language.How to enhance elementary school students’ interest in reading and improve their reading literacy have turned into a critical issue in primary school English teaching.Bright colors,pictures,images and content makes English picture books intriguing,which renders easiness of reading.Therefore,it is helpful to introduce picture-book reading in elementary school English teaching so as to stimulate elementary school students’ interest in learning English and develop their English reading competence and then to accomplish the goal of English teaching.Therefore,on the basis of theory of cognitive development and intuitive teaching,the research uses picture books as auxiliary reading material to the English classroom to find out influence of picturebook reading on the interest of elementary school students and ability in English reading.The author conducted a twenty-week teaching experiment.120 students of Class 5 and Class 6 in Grade 4 from Yan’an Experimental Primary School were included in this study.Class 5 was the experimental class and Class 6 was the control class.The experimental class principally utilized the primitive textbook and Emma’s Magic English was employed as reading material;the control class only applied primitive textbooks.For this experiment the major research methods involved tests,questionnaires and interviews.Beyond that,the SPSS system was applied to conduct the analysis of the outcomes of the detailed experiment.This study provided answers to two questions:1.Can the use of the English picture books arouse the students’ interest in English reading?2.Can the use of the English picture books improve the students’ achievements in English reading?Through the analysis of the data,this study draws the following conclusions:(1)Through the two questionnaire surveys conducted before and after the experiment in the experimental class,it can be found that after the teaching of reading English picture books for a semester.The average range is varying from 1.5 to 2.4(agree)for students who consider English reading dull prior to the experiment.Nevertheless,posterior to the experiment,the average range varies from 3.5 to4.4(disagree).According to the results,they are colorful pictures and interesting stories in the picture books that largely enhance students’ interest in English reading.(2)Through comparing the reading scores before and after the experiment,the difference between the experimental class and the control class is 0.01-0.03,which is basically no difference before the experiment,while after the experiment the difference between the experimental class and the control class is 0.7666.It shows that there is a significant difference between the experimental and control classes after the experiment.Therefore,the use of English picture books can improve the English reading performance of middle grade students in elementary school.