Using Comic Strips with Reading Texts: Are We Making a Mistake? Roya Khoii, Zahra Forouzesh Islamic Azad University, North Tehran Branch, Iran roya_kh, zforouzesh{@yahoo.com} Abstract This research examined the effect of using reading passages with comic strips on the development of young learners' reading comprehension. The study was conducted on 62 homogeneous female Iranian beginner EFL learners divided into two experimental and control groups. The learners in the experimental group used texts accompanied with comic strips in order to develop their reading comprehension ability, whereas those in the control group used the same texts without the comic strips. All of the participants received instruction in reading for three months, and at the end of the treatment the same post-test was given to both groups in order to compare their gains in reading comprehension. The result of a t-test for independent groups at the 0.05 level of significance revealed that there was no significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups. Therefore, it was concluded that using reading passages with comic strips does not have any significant effect on the learners’ progress in reading comprehension. 1. Introduction Reading, according to cognitive systems, is the process by which individual words are identified from their printed and written forms, and by which we combine these words into simple ideas or propositions in order to be able to form a mental model of the text based upon the inferences that take us beyond the given information. According to Grabe [10], the last decade, in particular, has been a time of much first and second language research resulting in many new insights for reading instruction. This expansion has contributed significantly to several factors: the efforts to address the needs of many different learner groups, the recognition that reading is probably the most important skill for second language learners in academic contexts, and the challenge to explore and understand basic comprehension processes. Scholars and teachers agree that having a high level of motivation is crucial in language learning. One well- known way to motivate foreign language learners to learn and to arouse their interest in this process can be bringing something extraordinary and new into the language class. Comic strips can be used efficiently for this purpose especially among teenagers and young adults because it brings a cheerful atmosphere into the class [5]. EFL and ESL teachers often give students reading materials accompanied by visuals such as pictures, cartoons, or comic strips to make reading more enjoyable and comprehensible. Researchers like Levie and Lentz [13]; Levin, Anglin, and Carney [14] have outlined the five major functions of visuals in reading: • Representation : visuals repeat the text’s content. • Organization : visuals enhance the text's coherence. • Interpretation: visuals provide the reader with more concrete information. • Transformation : visuals target critical information in the text and recode them in a more memorable form. • Decoration: visuals are used for their aesthetic properties or to spark reader's interest in the text. In the meta-analysis of the effects of visuals all but the decorative function facilitate memory. These functions are, in order of importance, transformation, interpretation, organization, and representation. The representational function overlaps with the other three (i.e., transformation, interpretation, and organization) because visuals always repeat part of the text's content, either the details or the relationships between the details. In general, it can be claimed that comic strips are not only used for fun in a language class, but there are Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal (LICEJ), Volume 1, Issue 3, September 2010 Copyright © 2010, Infonomics Society