By Amy Burke & Melody Zoch Picturebooks can help students construct their understanding of themselves and the world around them–sometimes offering new perspectives and other times affirming what they already know. In our work, we have been interested in examining how children who are adopted and their families are portrayed in picturebooks, an area of analysis that has received little attention. Using critical content analysis (Short, 2017) as our main method, we have identified which picturebooks address adoption and considered the ways in which adoption is portrayed within their pages. In this blogpost, we draw from our analysis of over 60 narrative picturebooks written primarily for grades K-6 as we sought to identify the larger themes and patterns across the books. Three main themes emerged, which we refer to as metanarratives about adoption: adoption is to be celebrated; adoption results in happiness for the adopted child and adoptive parents; and there are some challenges associated with adoption. Within these findings, we also noticed how the broader metanarrative of family was portrayed, namely that families should include a mother, a father, and at least one child. With this blog post, we hope to support teachers in using critical content analysis to examine their text selections and consider the underlying beliefs and assumptions about family students may glean whether explicitly or implicitly. Instructional Implications In our work, critically analyzing picturebooks centered on adoption, larger questions were raised regarding how families more generally are portrayed. Whether or not these representations are overtly discussed or highlighted in a particular book, children may internalize metanarratives about family based on them. Therefore, an important implication is for educators to attune to how families are portrayed in books that will be shared with students. We suggest applying a critical lens to books that may potentially be shared/available to students and asking, How are families portrayed in this book? What larger metanarratives of families are communicated? Who or what is not represented? These questions allow educators to take a critical lens to representations that may be taken for granted or assumed to be “common sense” (e.g., families have two parents). However, it is important not to stop there. Teachers need to go beyond just asking these questions as they make book selections or plan places to stop for discussion. Before doing those things, the next step is to then connect to the students in your classroom. How might they see themselves, or not, in the book? How might they be impacted (positively, negatively, both) by the portrayals in this book? To make those connections, teachers must know about their students’ families. Most educators would agree that family engagement is important, but sometimes we make assumptions about the family constructions of our students. While we certainly are not advocating for invading a student’s privacy or overstepping boundaries, we do encourage teachers to not start with the default assumption that everyone has two biological parents and lives with them, for example. There are so many complexities in the ways in which families are made up, and by asking the questions above and connecting to the students in the classroom, we hope that each child both can see themselves in some books and also see other ways in which families exist, thus expanding their conceptualization of what it means to be a family.
In these examples, we have used books that feature children who are adopted, but these questions can be asked of any texts featuring families. Taking time to ask yourself some of these questions as you consider books to read with your students can not only help you deepen your understanding of the text, it can also help with considering the interpretations your students might make and can help you anticipate the kinds of supports, questions, and follow-ups you may want to provide. Ready to try applying Critical Content Analysis to your own text selection and consider both the explicit and implicit messages students may receive about the construct of family? We offer five steps to begin.  Conclusion How families are represented is an important, often neglected, feature to consider when we consider the books we choose to share with our students. While we rightfully often focus on intersectional representation in terms of gender, ethnicity, and language, sometimes we take for granted that students’ family constructions will be represented. Yet often they are not. There are so many different forms families can take: a heteronormative family with two parents and children (with adopted and/or biological children); foster families; families with more than one child; families with a single parent; families with multiple ethnicities; families with no children. Critical content analysis can be a helpful tool in widening the scope of representation so that all children come to see their experience and experiences different from their own as normal. References Burke, A., & Zoch, M. (2023). Adoption as liminal space: Representations in children's picturebooks. Journal of Children’s Literature, 49(2), 2-55. Dahlen, S. P. (2024). Transracially adopted Korean children in youth literature. Adoption and Culture, 12(1), 37-54. Lewis, R. A. (2000). I love you like crazy cakes. (J. Dyer, Illus.). Little Brown Books for Young Readers. Meese,R.L.(2012). Modern family: Adoption and foster care in children’s literature. The Reading Teacher, 66(2), 129-137. Sun, L.(2021). Children of “a dream come true”: A critical content analysis of the representations of transracial Chinese adoption in picturebooks. Children’s Literature in Education, 52(2), 231-252. Williams, V. (2016). Home at last. (C. Raschka, Illus.). Greenwillow Books. Yi, J. (2021). Memoirs or myths? Storying Asian American adoption in picturebooks. Journal of Children’s Literature, 47(2), 22-34. Zoch, M., & Burke, A. (2025). Adoption representation in picturebooks: a critical content analysis. English Teaching: Practice & Critique, 24(2), 111-123. https://doi.org/10.1108/etpc-03-2025-0052 Amy Burke is a professor in the division of literacy and language at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, TX. Melody Zoch is a professor in teacher education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. By Emmaline Ellis Contemporary picturebooks often contain “salient print features,” visually captivating and interesting ways of displaying print in both the main body text and the illustrations. Some examples of salient print features include speech bubbles, words representing sounds, or changes in font color and size. We know that when adults read books with these features to children, they reference the book’s print (words and letters) with higher frequencies when compared to books that do not contain these interesting print features. These references are important, as explicit references to print are proven to support young children’s print knowledge, a crucial early literacy domain for later reading success. Furthermore, salient print features are multimodal, for they combine the visual aspects of print (words and letters) and aspects associated with design and image (e.g., color, font, direction). For example, when a character’s speech words inside of a speech bubble are red and LARGE to convey the emotion of anger. These features offer unique yet underexplored opportunities to connect and enhance print and comprehension learning. This blogpost presents findings from a research study that explored how salient print features were utilized by nine preschool teachers who were video-recorded reading aloud a set of 12 books that varied in their amount and types of these features. The study found that teachers overall referenced the print more frequently in books that contain the visually appealing features, and they most frequently referenced two specific features, Visible Speech and Environmental Print. Qualitative analyses of teachers’ references found that teachers utilized their talk about these features in ways that relate to code-based early literacy skills (i.e., print knowledge) and story comprehension, two domains of learning that are typically thought of as dichotomous. The goal of this blogpost is to encourage teachers to consider the unique opportunities salient print features offer to connect and enhance print and comprehension learning, with suggestions on how to utilize these features in their own classrooms. Instructional Implications Researchers Zucker, Ward and Justice (2009) created a list of nine salient print features common in children’s picturebooks (see Table 1), four of which occur in a book’s illustrations (Labels, Environmental Print, Visible Sound, and Visible Speech), and five of which occur in the body of a book’s narrative text (Font Style, Formatting, Font Size, Orientation, and Font Color). This table can be used as a reference point for teachers interested in examining their classroom books and read aloud texts for their inclusion of salient print features.  The teachers in this study had a higher average frequency of print references while reading books that contain salient print features (M = 5.79) than while reading books that did not have these features (M = 1.28). This finding supports prior research that suggests these print features prime teachers (and students) to notice and talk about the print, a necessary interaction for early print knowledge development. It is important to note that teachers made these references after I asked them to read the books provided “as they normally would”--I never once indicated my interest in print features or print referencing. Therefore, salient print features are a potentially underutilized resource that naturally increase the amount of discussion about print. Looking at the data for specific features, teachers most frequently referenced Visible Speech and Environmental Print, salient features that appear in a book’s illustrations. Practicing teachers interested in increasing their students’ exposure to discussion about print may therefore want to incorporate books with these two features into their classroom read alouds and lesson plans as a means of naturally increasing their print references.
Multiple teachers utilized this instance of Environmental Print as an opportunity to clarify or introduce the name of the story’s narrator and second most important character. While such references may seem basic in nature, they are indicative of complex attempts to support students’ recall of character names, a comprehension-related learning target often included in early childhood standards. Just like the teachers in my study, I encourage practicing educators to consider the ways in which their references about print features can embody a fascinating duality between print knowledge learning targets and complex connections to story comprehension related to events and characters. Due to this study’s findings that teachers naturally utilize such references, this recommendation is not burdensome or adding extra tasks to teachers’ already full plate. Rather, it is a call for teachers to reflect on the ways in which they are already referencing print and utilize their own professional experience and wisdom to make the most of their references by reaching two seemingly dichotomous but related instructional goals through purposeful text selection and targeted talk. How to start? Utilizing Table 1, examine the books in your classroom library or favorite read aloud texts. Do they contain any of the nine print salient features listed in the table? Does your current read aloud text contain speech bubbles, Environmental Print, or other salient print features? How might you point these visually interesting features out to your students? If the salient print features relate to the story’s plot or characters, like the Environmental Print on the t-shirts in Snappsy, can you reference the print in a way that bridges an aspect of story comprehension for your young readers? See more practical ideas to increase complex print referencing in the CLA Take 5: Ponder and Plan text feature.  Conclusion Due to their inclusion in recently published children’s books, salient print features are likely a pre-existing feature in early childhood and elementary read aloud texts that can easily be incorporated into existing book-related discussion. Adults' references to these interesting print features can simultaneously support children’s development of critical print-related early literacy skills and relate to aspects of story comprehension. By strategically and purposefully selecting print salient books like Snappsy for classroom reading activities, adults can embed a relatively easy yet proven way to heighten children’s attention to and interest in print into their daily classroom routines. Referenced Children’s Literature: Falatko, J. (2017). Snappsy the Alligator and His Best Friend Forever! (Probably) (T. Miller, Illus.). Viking Books for Young Readers. Referenced Research: Zucker, T.A., Ward, A.E., & Justice, L.M. (2009). Print referencing during read-alouds: A technique for increasing emergent readers’ print knowledge. The Reading Teacher, 63(1), 62–72. https://doi.org/10.1598/RT.63.1.6 Emmaline Ellis, PhD, is an assistant professor at West Chester University in West Chester, PA. She can be reached at [email protected]. Invitation to ContributeAs we head into a summer hiatus on the blog, we hope that you will take a moment to review the Read This/Teach This blog post by Jennifer Slagus and this Research Resource blog post by Emmaline Ellis. After looking at these new blog post formats, we would like to invite you to contribute a blog post in one of these formats during the 2025-2026 academic year. If you are interested in contributing a Read This/Teach This post about a book that you plan to use in your classroom next year, please reach out to Liz Nelson ([email protected]). Send a 2-3 sentence proposal that includes the book you plan to feature by July 1, 2025. If you presented at the 2025 CLA Research Conference or have completed some research in children's literature, please consider creating a post to highlight how teachers can put your research into practice. If you are interested in contributing a Research Resource post, please reach out to Emmaline Ellis ([email protected]). Send a 2-3 sentence proposal of your blog post by July 1, 2025. |
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