Arts and Design Studies www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-6061 (Paper) ISSN 2225-059X (Online) Vol.59, 2017 1 Analytical Study of the Implications of Text Illustrations on Lower Primary Pupils' Construal in the Classroom: The Case of Illustrations in Ghanaian Language and Literacy Textbook Harry Barton Essel 1 Akosua Tachie - Menson ,2 Anthony Amponsah - Fordjour ,3 Isaac Kofi Appiah ,4 1.Educational Innovations in Science and Technology, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology P.M.B, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana 2.Educational Innovations in Science and Technology, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology P.M.B, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana 3.Art Education, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology P.M.B, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana 4.Publishing Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology P.M.B, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana Abstract Illustrations used in textbooks for lower primary school teaching form an integral part of pupils’ cognitive abilities. Ghanaian publishers and illustrators give marginal attention to the liaison between textbook illustrations and their corresponding text when illustrating for children in lower primary schools. The incongruities between text and its illustrations in the textbooks pose challenges to lower primary pupils in their quest to understand, interpret and match text with adjoining illustrations. The study adopted qualitative research design to study how the misalliance of text and illustrations in textbooks affects teaching and learning at the lower primary level in selected Ghanaian schools in the Ashanti Region. Illustrations in the Ghanaian language and Literacy textbook (Asante Twi) for the lower primary level was chosen for the study. Two (2) lower primary schools were sampled for the study based on proximity. One (1) teacher was sampled from each school; and a total of eighty (80) pupils were also censused from the 2 schools with convenience and purposive techniques. Thirty-nine (39) and forty-one (41) pupils were used in school A and B respectively. Prospectively, Seguin’s model evaluates that there are standard illustrations in the Ghanaian language and literacy textbook. Conversely, the study evidenced that misalliances between text and its illustrations in textbook affected teaching and learning thereby resulting in pupils’ abysmal academic performance in terms of their comprehension of the illustrations to the various passages read. The teaching methods adopted by individual teachers also played a contributing factor to pupils’ understanding or misinterpretation of the text and its illustration. The study advocates that text and illustrations in textbooks should equally match in the passage to enable lower primary pupils make meaning and create appropriate mental models of text and its adjoining text illustrations. Keywords: Illustrations, Textbooks, lower primary schools, Language and Literacy, Asante Twi, Ghana 1. Introduction High-quality textbooks that merge text and illustration together in order to tell a story are eminent for healthy mental and social growth of children (Hladíková, 2014). Textbooks illustrations (illustrated text) play a major role in the educational system of Ghana as it can engages pupils into lifelong affection of reading (Reading is fundamental, 2010); this makes textbooks very essential to the academic and ultimate experience of lower primary pupils since they are regarded as early learners. Illustrated text is critical for the supplementary development of pupils and their ability to perform well both in school and later in life, for the amount of information that each individual must cover in order to become successful in any line of career is now steadily increasing (Hladíková,2014). A key aspect of the textbooks, that less emphasis is laid on, is the illustrations which correspond with the textual contents. Illustrations are known to be powerful and essential in the world of educating pupils in the lower primary schools. Essuman (2009) emphasized that an illustration must bring out the sort of perception for learning to take place. Therefore, illustrations in children’s book should communicate information and emotion in a unique way such that the learners feel what is going on in the passage being read. This could assist a growing child cultivate the ability to develop his or her own creativity and through that even the ability to think laterally (Heerden, 2012). Moreover, Illustrations in textbooks expose the world to early learners in a detailed direction even before they are able to read; children get to familiarize with new words and develop their language through both verbal and visual references provided by the textbook. From the discourse above, the domineering role of illustrations within a textbook is to take the written story to a new-fangled level of entertainment (Hladíková,2014), making the illustration represents as much of the story as the text, expanding the story without duplicating the text itself while the illustration does the heavy lifting as an intermediary between the text and the reader, allowing the reader to experience the direct meaning of the text (Murguia, 2013; Downing, 2013; Sloat, 2013). These assertions bring to bear the relevance of illustrations in lower primary education; however, it is evidenced from myriad study reviews that illustrators place marginal emphasis on illustrations in children’s textbooks which is supposed to give maximum feedback to pupils when