A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
A Developmentally Appropriate Approach to Early Learning
Author: Matthew (Matt) S. Seebaum
Parents don't get an owner's manual with each child. There are no instructions to read or customer service
technicians to call. Teachers, while trained professionals, have to deal with a new group of students each year.
Many students are coming from backgrounds increasingly different from their own, making it difficult to establish
a long-term bond. Matthew (Matt) S. Seebaum, a veteran educator with years of early childhood teaching experience,
wrote A Picture IS Worth a Thousand Words
for those parents and educators who could benefit from practical tools to aid in dealing with young children.
A Picture IS Worth a Thousand Words is an instruction book for teachers and parents about how to use images
to explain abstract concepts to young children. In the book, an aha! Process, Inc. publication, Matt explains
lessons that are easily adaptable for home or school; the book is appropriately generic in its location.
Matt Seebaum emphasizes that children are not merely miniature versions of adults. They are people who see and
experience the world differently from adults. Very often, they don't understand abstract concepts because of their
reliance on visual information. Such differences mean special learning tools need to be created to enhance their
understanding. For instance, many people know that in a classroom students are expected to ask permission before
they are excused. But young children, struggling to understand theoretical ideas, won't understand what permission
means. For those children, extra care is needed to explain the process of asking to be excused.
To help explain abstract thoughts to young children, Matt recommends that teachers or parents use pictorial behavior
strips or picture plans to convey information visually about desired conduct. These have proven to be very helpful in
demonstrating what behavior is acceptable and reinforcing it.