Strategies Used by Children When Reading Manga

Reading manga (Japanese comics) is generally thought to be a mindless activity and is frowned upon in school because it distracts children from “real” learning. With data from surveys and interviews, this article describes a number of strategies children develop as they teach themselves to read these multimodal texts. In addition, strategies they form for dealing with reading problems, such as vocabulary recognition and text comprehension, are presented. These strategies are learned gradually and sustained through repeated practice. Despite children being able to develop such language skills informally, teachers tend not to value their abilities.