Against the background of previous research regarding the interplay between pictures and text in teaching materials and picturebooks which shown an ambivalent approach to the use of pictures in narrative texts (Carney & Levin 2002) (Jonsson 2006) I set off to investigate the interplay between pictures and text in childrens litterature with the aim to illuminate how different interplays could be used in teaching. The study proceeded from the following questions:

• In which ways do pictures and texts interplay in some newly published reading textbooks?

• In which ways do pictures and texts interplay in some commonly read picturebooks for 8 year-old children?

• Which didactic consequenses could derive from this?

Through a multimodal literacy-theory I analyzed three commonly read picturebooks for eight year-olds and three newly published reading textbooks in which I labeled the pictures using an analyzing-tool created by Joel R Levin, professor of Educational Psychology vid Department of Educational Psychology, University of Arizona where the relation between text and picture can be representative, decorative, organizing or informative, or interpretive as Levin puts it (Levin 1981).

The total result showed that most text-picture-interplays are representative och informative, two interplays in which the reader is invited to interpret, make predictions, and make connections to own experiences or other stories. The organizing interplays create preconceptions and invites the reader to summarize the content and retell sequences or the whole story. The decorative interplays could through a multmodal literacy-theory rise questions about genres and social codes. The interplays between pictures and text are found being a great resource rather than an obstacle.