Picture Books and Read-Aloud: Social-Emotional Effects in Primary School
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7347/EdL-01-2026-06Keywords:
picturebook, read-aloud, social-emotional competences, primary school, empathyAbstract
Research on the effects of shared read-aloud has documented significant outcomes on children’s social-emotional development, yet the specific contribution of the picturebook as a trimodal text in which verbal, iconic and graphic-design codes co-construct meaning remains a partially unexplored field. This study analyses the mechanisms through which picturebook read-aloud develops empathy, prosocial competences and attitudes toward collective responsibility in primary school, integrating the Italian tradition of picturebook studies with international empirical research on social-emotional learning. The analysis converges in the proposal of a didactic-laboratory model grounded in mediated reading (Chambers, 2006; Hamelin, 2012), shared philosophical inquiry and artistic production rooted in the methodological tradition of Bruno Munari, verifiable in ordinary school practice and consistent with the Italian National Curriculum Guidelines of 2012 (MIUR, 2012) and the Civic Education Guidelines of 2024 (MIUR, 2024).
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