Effects Of Illustrations Of English Narratives On Reading Comprehension Of Chinese Middle School Students

The present research makes an exploration within the framework of the theory of illustrations and Paivio's Dual Coding Theory. It aims to examine the effects of illustrations and images on reading English narrative passages in respect of comprehension and memory through an empirical study.The writer chose one hundred second grade senior middle school students from two classes at Changchun No. Eight Middle School as participants. Different versions of test papers were used and two tests were conducted - the immediate test and the delayed test. The data collected from the two tests were analyzed by using SPSS 14.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Science). In the end, the answers to the research questions were found, the hypotheses were tested and the conclusions were made.The following findings are achieved: both illustrations and images have effects on comprehension and memory of the content of English narrative passages in the process of reading; different positions of illustrations to text (before-text-illustrations and after-text-illustrations) affect the effects of illustrations on reading: before-text-illustrations can foster comprehension and memory of the content of the text better than after-text-illustrations do; and readers' prior knowledge and experiences can affect the effects of illustrations on reading English narrative passages, therefore they also should be taken into consideration while evaluating the effects of illustrations on reading English narrative passages.