Until last year, Kevin Yu?s now 8-year-old daughter, Olive, wasn?t really into reading books for pleasure. But then, Olive discovered the graphic novel series Dog Man, and everything changed.
?We would catch her reading in bed at night by herself, and were like, ?I’m proud of you, but go to bed!?”
She now begs her parents for new graphic novels at the school book fair, and rereads all of the Dog Man books and Captain Underpants, too. She?s also started creating her own comic-style drawings. And recently, says Yu, she brought home her first non-graphic book from school.
Graphic novels are teacher approved
?I used to look at graphic novels as the junk food of reading,? says Vicki Fraser, an elementary school teacher in Rosemère, Quebec. But that changed when she was introduced to a graphic novel biography of French-Canadian strongman Louis Cyr that she couldn?t put it down. ?I was quickly pulled into the story, and the images helped to guide me, keep me focused, and make the story more clear,? she explains. Now, graphic novels are an essential part of her grade 5 classroom and she highly encourages her own daughters, who are 12 and 14, to read them.
She says graphic novels actually help her students become more sophisticated readers, thanks to visual cues, like the font used, which helps to communicate a character?s emotion, for instance. This teaches them to pick up on a book?s tone, which is a skill they are able to use with non-graphic texts, too.

.related-ar...