Text Complexity and Picturebooks: Learning from Multimodal Analysis and Children’s Discussion

Abstract This study expands and complicates ideas about what makes text complex in picturebooks. The study involved multimodal analysis of one visually and scientifically complex picturebook, Gravity, by Jason Chin. The authors also analyzed a transcript of three third graders discussing the text. This analysis illuminated how student talk provides further information for understanding what makes a particular text complex to particular students. The authors elaborate three themes from the data: genre ambiguity and sentences that spread across multiple pages challenge students; simple science may not be so simple; and, students do not always identify metafictive devices. The authors encourage future researchers to include visual and content analysis in making determinations and claims about text complexity. They suggest implications for preparing teachers to teach with visually and scientifically complex picturebooks.