Many parents think comics are low-grade literature, but they are not. It turns out that stories in pictures develop brain activity, speech, and imagination.
There’s a perception that comics, just like gambling for adult play slots online here, are no match for serious hobbies. But that’s not entirely true. Both the first and the second are an important part of our culture and form a personality.
So, comics are considered a separate branch of literature. They have their own original rules for the plot, narrative, and visual design. Originally, they were really created as entertaining stories, uplifting funny pictures that were printed in newspapers and magazines. But today comics can be very different – including educational, which allows you to talk to children about serious historical, psychological, or social topics. So, what are the pros?
Stories in Pictures Are Easier to Memorize
Therefore, they can be used in the educational process. Comics present information easily and vividly and are up to 90% absorbability: pictures and text provide a better understanding and memorization. They provide vivid memorization of facts, give a general idea of various phenomena, help systematize and organize information. For example, comics by Kiyosaki will pump your knowledge in financial literacy, “Neurocomics” will tell all the secrets about the human brain, and “Gravity Falls” will help you learn English.
Complex Structure Makes the Brain Work Harder
To read a comic book – both visual (the drawing) and verbal (the text) – the brain must perform several operations at once. And to do this, involve different departments and hemispheres: to find the connection between the picture and text, connect to a cause-effect sequence, fill in the gaps between scenes with meaningful content, and so on. Therefore, in order to perceive even the simplest comic book, our brain has to do a lot of work to analyze and synthesize the disparate multimodal information, from which it is spared when reading the text of an ordinary book.
Drawing Can Help Develop Imagination and Speech
Psychologists note comics contribute to the development of oral speech of preschoolers: while the child cannot read, he looks at the pictures and tells about them. By the way, often children’s stories differ from what the author planned to put into them. And that’s great.
It’s a Good Anti-Stress
Another plus of comics: they can help cope with the difficulties of life. How? In some classes, psychologists can ask a child to “draw” stories from life in a comic book format – to independently think through the plot, shots, lines of the characters.
Parents can try such a form of free time in one of the evenings – let each member of the family draw his or her own story. Drawing stories from one’s own life gives an opportunity to see the situation from the outside, to try different variants of its development, and to choose a weighted decision. Besides, it is easier to look at life’s difficulties through drawn characters, and it is fun and safe to look for a way out together with them.
