The Artist – Illustrating Children’s Books With Photography by Maryann M. Scheufele M.A.

photograph of seagrass

The technique I am labeling today I call “Photographic Illustrations”  (PI)for children’s books and there are two ways in which Iy PI come from my delightful interactions with children.  In a decisive moment I become involved in capturing the moments shared making them very special occasions together.  The first conceptualizaton of sharing delightful moments with children are from allowing the presence of a camera to accompany our visit together.  I simply shoot pictures along the way during our time together.  The second way to produce effective PI is to return to a place of interest to children that you have experienced with your children and shoot pictures of the objects that you know are of interest to them.  I would like to compose an article here that will perform the task of allowing my readers to understand how to enlighten and delight their children through the concept of creating books that were made just for them.  Why? Of course, to promote the growth of reading for enjoyment in the lives of your children, to help your young students gain a perspective of contributing to the art of story, and to preserve a special time together in your lives.

Together with my grandchildren and prepared to have a day of scientific discovery at a beach filled with long seagrass, camera in hand-I walked along trying my best to keep up with the three year old and her five year old brother who was beyond reach but within sight.  Their enthusiasm was innocently exploring areas of the beach that I personally had never ventured into.  I truly had to overcome my own inhibitions about walking through the seagrass.  I wondered how many unknown creatures lived in the grass as I unsussessfully tried my best not to break any of the stems of grass that I was wading through.  The grass was nearly as tall as my grandaughter.  Wonder if the tide comes in or wonder if we get stuck out here in the grass when it does I worried and stepped forwardly along.  My innocent grandchildren only had unbridled curiousity and none of my conjured up fears.  Their delightful exploring enthusiasm would be captured in the photography (PI). I decided in that one instant of thought as I began, midway through our exploration, to shoot pictures of them nonchalantly as they continued on their adventure.  From sea grass to driftwood and playfully swimming I enjoyed shooting as they continued having the time of their lives, as always.  Later on when I examined my photographs and placed them in an order to coincide with the simple words I decided to write creating a story about the time and place we had shared, but not exactly in that sequence.  Before I knew it, I had published a story book made especially for them.  That is how I produce work for Anza Books – a delightful story is produced to help children enjoy learning how to read.My contributions to children’s literature will always be  books they can relate to because they are truly interested in the subject as my Photographic Illustrations show(PI) in the children’s story book, Park Walkc 2008) and Cool Beach (c2008)

The second form of Photographic Illustrations ( PI) that I have used to create children’s books is through returning to a place that my children or grandchildren have particularly enjoyed to shoot pictures.  The most recent book that I have been working on shows PI as well as helps the youngest child learn to read through a study of phonemic awareness.  Phonemic awareness is the concept that each letter of the alphabet has a coinciding sound that it represents.  Phonemic awareness is a necessary concept to grasp in order to learn how to read the English Language.  Once these sounds that represent letters can be placed together in a row then words can be pronounced.  When teaching young children to learn to read the beginning sounds and the ending sounds of words are often emphasized. I used PI to create a book that emphasizes the phonemic awareness of beginning and ending sounds of two words in particular repeatedly.  I shot many pictures of boats and birds.  This idea came to me as my husband and I were out walking with our one year old grandson, and after we had been discussing the language skills of our three year old grandaughter.  We were aware that language skills, and speaking the beginning sounds and ending sounds of words were a necessary part of the skill of learning how to read and wanted to help our grandchildren to learn to read.  Thus the phonemic awareness book, the first of many phonemic awareness books that Anza Books hopes to produce,  Boat Bird, was created.(c 2009)

Photographic Illustrations (PI) for children’s books is a wonderful way to help children become interested in learning to read.  Write words along with your photos that may have some relevance to what they were doing and help your children learn to read while you are looking at pictures together. Remember that the most important concept for a young child to understand when learning to read the English Language is phonemic awareness.  There are only thirty-six letters in the alphabet and children that take time to learn the concept that there is a   sound represented by each of those letters will have developed a sense of phonemic awareness.  Then the combination of lettere like ch and st…and be learned; but the idea of phonemic awareness is simpler and more effective than trying to memorize all of the words in the English Language.  Anza Books is devoted to helping children learn to read through developing phonemic awareness, finding topics of interest to children, and an ongoing development of  Juvenile American History Stories.  If you have and interesting American History Story in your family, Anza Books can show you a way to develop your story through the use of PI, later.Anza Books

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Tagged as: Add new tag, American Education, Child, children\'s literature, English Language, Family, Learning, Phoneme, Photography, Reading