Research Task: Educational Illustration

For this research task I had to take a look at educational publishers and answer the following questions:

1. What can you observe about the subjects they cover?

2. How have they adapted to reflect changes in the way we live?

3. What observations can you make about the material devised for different audiences?

Oxford Reading Tree

What can I observe about the subjects they cover?

Oxford Reading Tree starts off their publications books with wordless books that help introduce to children about holding a book and turning a page while entertaining them with imagery. As the 'Oxford' levels increase, you'll see more words being integrated and include daily life stories-- after the age of 5 you'll see more learning introduced of animals and people.

Continuing, the learning becomes more complex and at level 12 and 13, complex stories are introduced- more educational elements and sophisticated vocabulary with be involved until the final reading stage where they'll read independently and will understand different narrative elements and "hidden" meanings.1

These subjects themselves range from educational, fiction, non-fiction, and instructional.

How have they adapted to reflect changes in the way we live?

They've not adapted too much from what I remember when I was in primary school, having different colours and levels based on your reading level; but doing this and with the new introduction to phonics learning, it teaches children how to sound the words from what the letter says.

This links into the next question but with the introduction of these levels and the books in them, it's much more in depth than what it was and the subjects talk more about stories than teaching specific subjects-- a stepping stone into comprehensive learning.

What observations can you make about the material devised for different audiences?

The books/material is very particular on the different audiences, with the different ages brackets you can see a shift in imagery and topics; you'll see it lose some colour or use photo imagery more than bright colours (not always but generally).

Janet and John

What can you observe about the subjects they cover?

Janet and John started off as a series of 4 books before they got really popular and released multiple books about the daily lives of Janet and John; the books used repetitive wording which made them popular.

How have they adapted to reflect changes in the way we live?

Once the Star Kids Ltd took over the Janet and John they updated the books that taught Maths and English, and included different character with different ethnicity and background-- and they lost their old fashioned nuclear family dynamic. This made the books have a wider representation of the public and not just white people; however they did get rid of the "look and say" aspect of the books that made them so popular-- and the went out of publishing. 2

What observations can you make about the materials devised for different audiences?

The books covered for the ages 4 to 7 years old with materials being Maths, English and writing, while having the older editions being of the daily life; it's not as varied as other publications on this research task.

1, 2, 3 and Away!

What can you observe about the subjects they cover?

The subjects they cover is the basics of general knowledge, like colour, animal, numbers, etc., as the level of reading increases the more writing and story-telling is involved (similar to Oxford Reading Tree).

How have they adapted to reflect changes in the way we live?

1,2 3, and Away! has adapted with growing technology, creating videos of 'mapped' reading to read along to and learn words and sounds. Children develop the love for reading at a young age by reading-- or sounding out the words along to videos or with parents. 3

What observations can you make about the materials devised for different audiences?

The books are done by reading levels- like the others, however their stories get a little more detailed as the levels go on. It keeps the vibrant illustrations and allows children to get confidence in their reading ability with more difficult words.

Evans Brothers Nigeria Publishers Ltd

What can you observe about the subjects they cover?

The subjects they cover is a wide range of different avenues from general knowledge and nursery rhymes, to literature and language learning; from nursery to secondary age.

How have they adapted to reflect changes in the way we live?

They have released different books on different subjects; release home economics, social studies and information technology books to fit with the modern-day learning. 4

What observations can you make about the materials devised for different audiences?

They have wide array of subjects and different levels for the subject to suit all needs of a student/child, whatever direction a child wants to go in for the future they can have the tols to get there.

India Oxford Press

What can you observe about the subjects they cover?

Very similar to Evans Brothers, they have a wide arrange of subjects that they cover, and within those subjects are sub-subjects, like Business Studies into Accounting. the age range is very wide as they aim to give as much knowledge they have to inspire and expand the minds of the future generations.

How have they adapted to reflect changes in the way we live?

They continue to release and update books and release subjects that update to our times, and released in 13 Indian languages, making it accessible to those in their country. It also explores the power of digital products, allowing interactive online learning and online support for students. 5

What observations can you make about the materials devised for different audiences?

It's really extensive their library of books, it's almost all ages with different subjects and their online support and interactivity is something that could really help students/children with their learning.

Ladybird (Penguin Publishers)

What can you observe about the subjects they cover?

Ladybird focuses on teaching children to use their imagination and their minds emotionally, creating books that are magical, adventurous and mischievous.

How have they adapted to reflect changes in the way we live?

As time goes on and the more books that are released, the more diversity we see in books; we see different ethnicity and backgrounds for different stories. They also publish audio-books for those bad in eyesight and/or difficulty reading. 6

What observations can you make about the materials devised for different audiences?

The little readers books are more simple in words and are also a sensory exploration -like touch and feel animals, or books with sliders and flaps to allow children to explore the book with the pages as a parent made read along. After that, the children's stories go into story-telling of animals or people of the daily lives then into classic literature and exploring a wide-range of stories fiction and non-fiction.

The Children's Newspaper

What can you observe about the subjects they cover?

It's difficult to initially see what subjects they cover since it looks like an ordinary newspaper, however when you go into reading you'll see daily life stories that real. I was a little shocked to see this since it's so different from what I've been researching, there isn't anything imaginative, it's a life for children to read-- and I can see that it would have been really difficult for a toddler to read and understand what is going on so I feel like this would have been for the ages of 7-10? It showed topics of the nation's children as to show what was important knowing about the world. 7

How have they adapted to reflect changes in the way we live?

Since it's life stories it would have taught children a lot at their time, being real with them about what's going on around the world; however, it couldn't have had a very wide demographic since you had to be able to read the newspaper and after a certain age being told that you were a child would deter them from picking up a children's newspaper. 8

What observations can you make about the materials devised for different audiences?

There is some imagery for a younger child with odd bits of dialogue for them to read, but I imagine that this would have been read to you as a young child before you learn to read it yourself. There a different topics of life going on in each individual article that would interest one child and not the other, keeping them intrigued on what was going on around the world.

Reflection

This research task had to be by far the hardest research task I have had to do, I wanted to be elaborate if I could with my research, although I found it hard not to repeat myself with the answers to the questions. It was interesting to see each publisher's approach to educational books, and the different subject of books.

I may have to revisit this research task if it isn't up to standard, because this research task was so difficult.

1 U/A, Oxford Owl 'Oxford Reading Tree &Oxford Levels', U/A. https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/oxford-reading-tree-levels/ Accessed Mar 19, 2024.

2 Wikipedia contributors. (2022, November 17). Janet and John. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:37, March 19, 2024, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Janet_and_John&oldid=1122389505

3 U/A, 123 and Away!, U/A. https://www.123andaway.com/1-2-3-and-away-books Accessed Mar 19, 2024.

4 U/A, Evans Brothers Nigeria Publishing Ltd, U/A. https://evanspublishers.com/estore/product-category/primary-books/?orderby=popularity&paged=1 Accessed Mar 19, 2024.

5 U/A, Oxford India university Press 'About us', U/A. https://india.oup.com/about Accessed Mar 19, 2024.

6 U/A, Penguin 'Ladybird', U/A. https://www.penguin.co.uk/genres/children Accesed Mar 19, 2024.

7 Wikipedia contributors. (2023, December 11). The Children's Newspaper. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:13, March 19, 2024, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Children%27s_Newspaper&oldid=1189335294

8 U/A, Look And Learn 'The Children's Newspaper', U.A. https://www.lookandlearn.com/childrens-newspaper/index.php Accessed Mar 19, 2024.