if students can figure out what the word is by looking at the picture
Oh gosh, that's terrible. There is a very great response to the whole look at the picture nonsense in the book Education's Smoking Gun by Reginald Damerell.
and the illustration is labeled in Chinese. I burst out laughing as soon as I saw the illustration, because I can read Chinese, so I knew the punchline. The children are shown the illustration, and asked to guess the meaning of the Chinese characters in the caption. In the illustration that Reginald Damerell commissioned his graduate student from Taiwan to produce, the Chinese characters did not say "the cat is on the mat," but rather "the cat's eyes are open."
One thing that I really like about the book Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach, by an eminent linguist and an equally eminent lexicographer, is that the stories have no illustrations whatsoever. Indeed, the final story in the book, called "The Picture Country," is beautifully evocative and remarkably visual story told entirely in words, which makes the point to children that once they know how to read, they can see more beautiful pictures in their mind than one could find in all the book illustrations in the world. That is genuine reading.
Oh gosh, that's terrible. There is a very great response to the whole look at the picture nonsense in the book Education's Smoking Gun by Reginald Damerell.
http://www.amazon.com/Educations-Smoking-Gun-Destroyed-Educa...
There is an illustration of a cat, not so different from this image,
http://spoilurpets.com/images/Thermal%20Cat%20Mat.JPG
and the illustration is labeled in Chinese. I burst out laughing as soon as I saw the illustration, because I can read Chinese, so I knew the punchline. The children are shown the illustration, and asked to guess the meaning of the Chinese characters in the caption. In the illustration that Reginald Damerell commissioned his graduate student from Taiwan to produce, the Chinese characters did not say "the cat is on the mat," but rather "the cat's eyes are open."
One thing that I really like about the book Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach, by an eminent linguist and an equally eminent lexicographer, is that the stories have no illustrations whatsoever. Indeed, the final story in the book, called "The Picture Country," is beautifully evocative and remarkably visual story told entirely in words, which makes the point to children that once they know how to read, they can see more beautiful pictures in their mind than one could find in all the book illustrations in the world. That is genuine reading.