The Influence of the Illustrations on the Understanding of the Hebrew Written Text in the Elementary School in the Arab Sector in Israel

Abstract

This article examines the impact of illustrations and images in the Hebrew textbooks on the students’ understanding of the texts, and the extent of using details out of these illustrations in the process of understanding of the written text, furthermore, their impact on developing imagination and discussions on the basis of these drawings within class. The Arab students begin to learn Hebrew in the third grade, after spending the last two first years in studying their native language, a process which involves great efforts, for the gap between the Arab spoken language and the literary one is great. By the time the studen ts begin to learn Hebrew as a second language, most teachers use a variety of illustrative tools in order to demonstrate tasks and material. The use of images to describe words is the first stage, then using of illustration to present the text’s subject, becomes the next phase. In this phase, the illustrations mediate between the student and the textbook, replacing the role of words and enable the students, who are not capable of using the Hebrew language quite good yet, to learn the new words. This study examines the relation between illustrations and textbooks through Hebrew class observations and interviewing of the students in the third and fourth grades in the “ Terra Santa School ” at Acre.