English Picture Books in Japanese Elementary EFL Education: An Analytical Framework Integrating RiDL and Muramatsu's Typology

This study examines the pedagogical role of English picture books in Japanese elementary EFL education by integrating the Reading for In-Depth Learning (RiDL) framework, supplemented by Muramatsu’s typology. While English picture books are widely recommended in elementary English education, teachers often lack a shared analytical perspective for selecting and interpreting them as texts. To address this issue, this study reconceptualizes picture books as literary and multimodal resources rather than solely as instructional materials. A corpus of 30 English picture books commonly used or recommended in Japanese elementary EFL contexts was analyzed at an overview level. The analysis focused on identifying tendencies across three book types, namely Real Books, Reading Schemes, and ELT Picture Books, in relation to the four RiDL dimensions: textual, personal, critical, and creative and transformative engagement. The findings indicate that different book types foreground different interpretive affordances. Real Books, particularly wordless picture books, tend to support personal interpretation and creative meaning making, while Reading Schemes emphasize textual clarity and structural predictability. ELT Picture Books exhibit hybrid characteristics across the dimensions. By integrating the RiDL framework with Muramatsu’s typology, this study offers a systematic analytical approach to understanding picture books and highlights its relevance for pre-service teacher education in elementary EFL contexts.