Some parents worry if their children only read graphic novels – or even mostly read them. A common question goes something like: how do I get my child to read something other than comics or graphic novels? But the answer might be: you don’t have to.

Graphic novel series such as Heartstopper, The Babysitters Club and Amulet fly off school library shelves. And original graphic novels such as Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust-themed Maus and To This Day, based on Shane Koyczan’s spoken-word poem, are staples of many high-school classrooms.

Rather than hindering or holding back reading skills, reading graphic novels can actually help develop them.

Reading is many things – from breaking the code to understand what you read, to reading for enjoyment and getting “hooked” by a narrative. Debates about the best way to teach reading have been going on for over 80 years. They’ve recently gained strong focus with the ability of science to examine brain function.

Research shows reading graphic novels leads to improved reading and comprehension skills for all students. And studies demonstrate that children and teenagers who read graphic novels have improved, more positive attitudes towards reading. They are more likely than children who don’t read comics and graphic novels to think of themselves as good readers.

Millions of Australians, both children and adults, struggle with literacy.

In this series, we explore the challenges of reading in an age of smartphones and social media – and ask experts how we can become better readers.

This is extremely important: rates of reading for pleasure among young people are on the decline in Australia and around the world, along with a decline in literacy skills.

A proven way to get young readers to both re-engage with reading for pleasure and improve their literacy is to allow – even encourage – them to engage with reading that fits their tastes and interests, linking reading to media they “already recognise as part of their cultural life”. Graphic novels are part of this solution.

The science of learning to read

In 2026, when we talk about the science of reading, our go-to evidence base comes from the National Reading Panel, a United States body set up in 1997 that reviewed more than 100,000 reading studies, held public hearings, and in 2000, published a series of reports about the best ways to learn to read.

It gave us what teaching experts call the Big 6.

The first skill is phonological awareness: understanding the different ways language can be broken down into smaller parts. The next is phonics: teaching children to read and spell by explicitly teaching students the relationships between letters or letter combinations.

These skills are often not explicitly taught after they are mastered. But the other four – fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension and oral language – continue to be learnt over a lifetime of reading.

When a reader can successfully break the code of a text, reading in schools becomes reading to learn (rather than learning to read).

How graphic novels help reading

Young readers often live their lives in a visual culture, where information is accessed through images, videos and moving images such as film. So, it may be counterintuitive to ask readers in classrooms to work solely through static, one-dimensional texts.

Graphic novels have the potential to build reading-to-learn skills, such as fluency and (ultimately) reading comprehension.

Graphic novels also build reader engagement, which supports reading fluency. The elaborate set of codes and conventions specific to graphic novels present the reader with a sophisticated combination of reading cues, both text-based and visual.

Narrative and meaning are created in graphic novels by a complex marriage of image, text and design elements. These include speech and thought bubbles, text or narrative boxes, sound effects (typically portrayed by dynamic visual representation of onomatopoeic words, or words that replicate sound – like the BAMs and POWs of the 1960s Batman TV show), and regular and irregular panels.

High-level decoding and comprehension skills are used to process many elements of a graphic novel. They include the portrayal of facial expressions and physical posture and gestures, the illustrators’ visual style and colour palette, the physical layout of the narrative through the use of panels, break-out images, and linear and non-linear storylines.

The support provided by these visual elements means the graphic novel is increasingly the text of choice for working with many kinds of students.

This includes students with reading difficulties and those characterised as “reluctant” readers (children who can read but choose not to, or resist reading for a range of reasons not directly associated with technical literacy). Graphic novels are also suited to children learning English as a second or additional language.

The skills needed to navigate and comprehend narrative and meaning in a graphic novel are now being recognised as essential ones, in an increasingly visually dominated world.

More than gateways

Positive attitudes towards graphic novels among students and educators is a recent development. For many decades — and still, in some quarters — graphic novels suffered from negative ideas about their literary quality and moral standing, due to their association with comic books.

Class-based prejudices against comic books spilled over to infect attitudes towards the graphic novel. For many decades, they were seen at best as mere “gateway” texts to “real” literature, or means by which to introduce classics such as Shakespeare to classrooms full of unruly and uninterested teenagers.

Education professor Richard Allington’s definition of fluency describes the ability to read a text quickly, accurately and with proper expression. It has often been described as the “most neglected” reading skill with calls for it to be taught more actively in reading classrooms.

A graphic novel provides a platform where a reader can interpret meaning rapidly – often without conscious attention, yet with the capacity to deeply understand the story, and become engaged or “hooked” into reading.

As Judd Winick, author of the Hilo graphic novel series for readers aged 8 to 12, has said: “ You see the words inside the balloons above the characters? You have to read them. It’s reading.”

Robyn Cox is affiliated with Primary English Teaching Association of Australia (PETAA). I am a life member.

Judith Ridge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.