| As two different types of reading materials with different functions,bridging books and textbooks play an important role in the development of children’s reading skills.In recent years,as people pay more attention to children’s reading,various kinds of children’s books have been published in the market.In this study,we selected four editions of primary language textbooks for lower grades and the top-selling original and introduced bridge books,and a quantitative and qualitative research method was adopted to compare their text modality,image modality,and graphic relationship.We analyzed the multimodal characteristics of the two types of readers,summarized the existing problems of the two types of readers,and made suggestions for their improvement.In the study,we found that there are some differences in text modality,image modality and graphic relationship between the lower elementary textbooks and the bridging books.In terms of text modality,the number of words,the number of word types,the coverage rate of common words and the average sentence length of bridging books are all lower than those of textbooks;in terms of image modality,the textbooks are richer in image types,and the image function of bridge books is mainly to present emotions and reproduce storylines,while the image function of lower grade language textbooks is mostly to reproduce concepts and narratives;in terms of graphic relationship,the graphic relationship of bridging books is relatively single,and most of them are complementary,while the graphic-text relationships in textbooks are richer,with a variety of situations such as text dependent on graphics and graphics dependent on text.The study found that three kinds of multimodal problems existed in the lower grade language textbooks.First,there are large gaps in character usage,word usage and sentence length between versions,and there is still a gap with the requirements of the Compulsory Education Language Curriculum Standards for word learning in the lower grades.Second,the pinyin labeling needs to be further standardized.The scope of pinyin labeling and the font for labeling pinyin should be unified.Third,there are common sense errors in the textbook illustrations and low interactivity of the pictures.The two types of problems in bridging books are mainly that the number of words is relatively single,and some of the words used are beyond the learning range of elementary school students in the lower grades,making it more difficult for children to read.Meanwhile,in terms of image modality,bridge books have a single type and function of images,which are mostly narrative reproductions of storylines.There are still shortcomings in the current textbooks for the early grades and the bridging books used for the transition between elementary and primary school.This is mainly due to the fact that language indicators such as words,phrases,and sentence length have not been unified in the compulsory education stage,so there is no official reference for language indicators in the process of writing textbooks and editing bridging books.At the same time,the calculation of text difficulty and graded reading in China are still in the initial stage,and a comprehensive reading grading system,such as the Lexile Framework used in the U.S.Common Core States,has not yet been developed.Therefore,there are characteristics such as the use of difficult words and excessively long sentences in the process of textbook writing and bridge book creation,introduction and editing.The influence of image modality and graphic relationship on text difficulty should also be taken into account.To address these problems,this paper suggests that official core words and core high-frequency words commonly used in children’s reading should be set,so that textbook writing and bridge book publishing have a basis in language dimensions.The more difficult words in the books should be screened and replaced,while the types of images in the reading materials should be enriched and the functions of images should be expanded.To further develop Chinese graded reading,in order to provide children with reading texts that are meaningful and moderately difficult to read,classic literary works may be adapted so that the language difficulty and complexity of these reading materials are adjusted to a level appropriate to the reading ability of the target readers,thereby improving children’s reading levels. |
