The importance of using pictures in language classes is not a matter to be ignored by language teachers. Among different kinds of pictures, comic strips are the only kind which uses two medias for communication-words and images. The present study comic pictures were used at the pre-reading stage to prepare the students for the incoming materials, and activate their relevant background knowledge. 92 students at grades 1 and 3 were chosen and randomly assigned to two groups of experimental and control. While the experimental group received comic pictures at eh pre-reading stage for three months the control group did not and received the traditional reading input. The post-test comparison of the two groups at the end of the experiment revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group both in reading comprehension and retention

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