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Comics In The School Classroom Makes For Smarter Kids – Official

Comics in the classrooms make for smarter schoolkids... it's official, according to research carried out by Manchester University.

Ahead of this week's London Book Fair, there has been a spotlight placed on research carried out in 2022 and 2023 by Manchester University, which began measuring the impact of the use of comic books in school classrooms. The study project, funded by Comic Art Europe and conducted by researchers at Manchester University in collaboration with LICAF, the annual Lakes International Comic Art Festival, ran for two years at Abraham Moss Community School in an underprivileged area in north Manchester.  Most of its students are from ethnic minorities and have higher-than-average subsidies given to disadvantaged students. Fifty students took part in the comics literacy programme, while 50 others functioned as a control group.

Teachers Hester Harrington and Sim Leech ran a series of ten full-day workshops with the children, focusing on both making and reading comics, joined by comic artists such as Bleeding Cool regular Marc Jackson who ran a session called Confidence in Drawing, and Sayra Begum whose graphic novel Mongrel tells the story of a young Muslim woman growing up in the UK. The kids also received a copy of the Phoenix Weekly Comic sent to their homes.

Sim said, "I've never known a group of seven-year-old kids sit and share books for 25 minutes without mucking about before." Harrington said of one troubled boy who fell in love with Strange Skies Over East Berlin by Jeff Loveness and Lisandro Estherren, "He kept it on his desk all day, and in the end, we let him keep it. It made him engage in the workshop, and he found a way to put his energy into his learning through comics."

They measured that the average reading age of the schoolroom class involved in the comics intervention rose by 18 months in the year after the workshops started, in contrast to a rise of 11 months in the other group. The number of children who listed reading as one of their favourite leisure activities also doubled in the intervention group, while falling in the comparison group.

The class' regular teacher stated that these workshops helped the kids understand the sequencing of events and narratives and more easily grasp a subsequent lesson on first aid. It's sequential art, folks. They also reported creating their own comics allowed students, particularly those who struggled with traditional writing, to express themselves in ways that built self-esteem. For students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), comics provided a low-pressure entry point to literacy and communication, with "visual scaffolding" of comics breaking down barriers to learning. This was also especially true of those kids with English as a second language, with comics used to bridge language gaps.

A history workshop saw students create comic strips about World War II, which helped them retain key dates and events more effectively than traditional methods, with 70% of participants showing improved recall and deeper comprehension.

Before the exercise, only 34% of surveyed teachers viewed comics as a legitimate educational tool. Afterwards, 91% of the teachers now advocate for their inclusion in classrooms, citing improved student outcomes and engagement.

This comes as the National Literacy Trust reported that 56% of 8-to-18-year-olds don't enjoy reading in their free time, a record low, with levels of reading enjoyment being found to be weakest for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Looking ahead, the report calls for broader adoption of comics in education The follow up programme, Comic Potential, is expanding the workshops into several primary schools and special schools in Barrow and Kendal. It recommends professional development for teachers to integrate comics effectively and suggests expanding resources like LICAF's YouTube channel, which already offers free Comic Potential videos presented by Hester Harrington, online resources that can be rolled out across the country and used by any school to help teachers do everything from creating zines to using comics in cross-curricular lessons.

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