ILLUSTRATORS AS ELEMENTARY EDUCATORS; (Ages 3-10) 19th Century-Present.

In elementary education, teaching cannot be sustained without visuals for the learners learn more after seeing what already exists and what they have never seen physically but believe it exists because it has been shown and said by the teacher. You can recall a «wind mill» because you might have probably seen it in an illustration or image but not physically thats how they learn. Almost all children learner books are filled with an array of descriptive images, but have you ever wondered «who makes them?» and «what does it take to create them?», that is an illustrator the unsung hero who educates but behind the curtains. In this study we explored the role of an editorial childrens book illustrators in elementary child development, as we explore materials from a series of publications in line with childrens' learning materials between ages of 3-10 years with emphasis to english language and Numbers since 19th century to date. The Illustrator’s work goes beyond Just the creation of study materials but also an influencer of creativity by providing prior understanding of literature and Art itself, the different publications for children since many of the children are forced to re-draw the illustrations in these books and thats definitely how the author of this publication became an illustrator himself. Illustrations in children publications are not just descriptive images but many stand alone to teach children these particular visual concepts. 'Textbooks are a fundamental educational resource that can greatly benefit from the inclusion of illustrations. Visual representations of concepts, diagrams, and images not only make the content more visually appealing but also aid students in understanding complex subjects. By complementing texts with relevant and well-designed illustrations, textbooks become more inclusive and accessible to students of different learning styles'.

Childrens books highly rely on illustrations which enhance the young readers curiosity to that end more hence they end up learning more. Illustrators create an imaginary visual universe that promotes visual story telling. Lastly, illustrations can introduce diverse characters, cultures, and settings, promoting engagement and expanding children’s worldview. By collaborating with illustrators, authors can create books that ignite a love for reading and inspire young minds definitely become perfect professionals in either writing or illustration depending on each ones will.

The educational illustrators aid teachers in their teaching processes by through their work found in textbooks, work books, online learning materials, visual story books and videos as well. Through the art of imagination they make really complex ideas an learning processes as required easier for the children to grasp it easier. The process of teaching for kids always demands additional visual demonstration. Perhaps the children work books are 70% images due to their significance in the teaching process.

The Alphabet is the basis of reading and writing in any language and in English it is separated into two parts the consonant and the vowels all these serve different purpose in the language however an illustrator these professionals take time to understand the value of both and how they can be implemented. The Alphabet is one of the basic learning tools that the children use to understand reading and writing, these are always fully illustrated with each letter representing a particular object or action. Some illustrators use a single Image like for an apple and an apple is created without any support images, but the 19th century illustrators used to draw full compositions which made their images more complex and interesting as well.

The contemporary Alphabets serve the same purpose of being more descriptive than just a single letter, however the contemporary illustrators use more vibrant and and cartoonish illustrations and mostly a single image is made unlike the 19th century illustrators who used fully realistic illustrations! Besides their is currently a strong use of phonics for letter sounds which here the children to easily understand building sounds of letters than just slinging the vowels, this eases the reading process and understanding of the Sound for its natural purpose. Just as it is in the Russian Alphabet.

Nursery rhymes are also another effective method of teaching children as it helps them first of all enjoy the learning process because they are entertaining but besides the learning the verbal language and speaking skills, however the work of an illustrator may sound alien but what if the rhymes are read by the parents at home for their children the visual imagination always makes the rhymes even funnier and below are some illustrated rhymes

Illustrators are also credited for their promotion of critical thinking and creativity among the learners, for instance in Mathematics and numbers, children are influenced to to interpret symbols and analyse numbers which eases the counting processes to besides manipulating numbers themselves to look more like numbers like in the third illustration. Such illustrations are intriguing and often raise the curiosity of the starting learners in elementary schools to understand the number and the animal it particular. However when we go back in time the illustrators still had strong colours with objects in real compositions just like the illustrations above. However the illustrations for number 5, 6 and 7 are not just displaying the number of objects but as well encouraged the learner to search and count the number of objects, this may seem simpler to the reader but for an infant clear attention need to be payed to find and count the number of items.

Vibrant colours as used by most illustrators in this modern period have also another important significance in the study process. By using brilliant colours, beautiful shapes and designs and other visual elements. Some illustrations are followed with various actions like the numbers in the illustrations below where each number is created in proximity to the character with an interesting actions which are stimulative makes the created material more attractive and keeps grasping the attention of the infant learners and become more engaged in the learning process. This is because children are naturally attracted to visually bright coloured objects than dark valued ones besides moving objects than the static ones.

Visual Story telling is a technique by the illustrators through their creations of illustrations to covey narratives of various stories, by arranging characters, text and emotional events. Sometimes the illustrators are tasked to create simply stories without text to encourage the learners or students to develop the ideas themselves about the meaning of the stories. The practice of visual story telling is commonly used in children books and language education in upper levels. They sometimes arranged in boards with an array of compositions with narratives. And for others they are arranged with text and illustration or sometimes the illustration comes first visually describing what is already in the in the following paragraphs.

The student is encouraged to in this to engage deeper in the subject matter by arranging characters the text, characters stories, emotions and environments as this helps to build the power of imagination, empathy and sometimes creativity in illustration and comprehension skills which as well allows them to draw a connection to the story and bagging some life lessons from them at a gender age! Just as Grandmothers’ stories always end with a life lesson!

The editorial illustrators create visually appealing images and compositions towards the particular stories which are more analytical and gives the picture of the children to read without easily getting bored and besides kids, even in really large novels are page or two illustrated in every chapter really makes a greater meaning to the reader.

English grammar has all the time been taught With the aid of the the illustrations since there is a strong need for descriptions which clearly have to be imbedded into the study materials for example the white grammar pages which represent the opposites and prepositions but just placed however with a text awaiting the students reading and in these particular illustrations of prepositions there is a use of emotions of happy and sad hot and cold drawing a cup of coffee and an ice cube, so such descriptions always stick in the learners mind more thank how it would have been plainly text.

Enhancing Understanding and Retention Illustrations can significantly contribute to students’ comprehension and retention of information. Visual representations of complex concepts, such as infographics, diagrams, and charts, help students grasp abstract or difficult ideas in a more accessible way. By visually organizing and presenting information, illustrations provide a visual aid for students to understand and remember essential concepts more effectively.

The importance of illustrations: Anything that encourages children to become curious, creative and to learn to read is a good thing. Before young children can read, images pull them in, engage their curiosity and tell a story without words. This is why story time is so wonderful, even for the smallest kids. They become enraptured with a story and want to follow along, although they don’t understand written language yet. Associating images with letters and words helps young children’s learning development and comprehension. It also enriches their imagination and inspires a love of books.