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Rebus Equations. Often Found in Children's Pastime and Puzzle Books

A rebus uses pictures or symbols to represent words, allowing children to feel like they are reading. One form is a rebus equation where a picture plus a letter makes a sound to create a word, like F + ear = fear. Rebuses focus on sound over spelling. Common representations include numbers for syllables or letters for sounds. Beyond puzzles, rebuses can show phrases through image arrangement. While helping develop vocabulary and comprehension, rebuses may have unclear or too difficult pictures for some.

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597 views

Rebus Equations. Often Found in Children's Pastime and Puzzle Books

A rebus uses pictures or symbols to represent words, allowing children to feel like they are reading. One form is a rebus equation where a picture plus a letter makes a sound to create a word, like F + ear = fear. Rebuses focus on sound over spelling. Common representations include numbers for syllables or letters for sounds. Beyond puzzles, rebuses can show phrases through image arrangement. While helping develop vocabulary and comprehension, rebuses may have unclear or too difficult pictures for some.

Uploaded by

lacusochan
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Any approach that which uses a picture or symbol in place of particular

word may be described as a ‘rebus’ approach. The method allows a child to feel
that he or she is reading at a functional level by replacing difficult nouns or
concepts with a picture or symbol.

Rebus Equations. Often found in children’s pastime and puzzle books,


one form of a rebus appears in an equation form. In this kind of rebus, you will
find examples like: F + [picture of an ear] =. You add the sound characteristically
made by the letter F to the sound of the word ear to make the word fear.

Notice that this kind of rebus focuses on the sound of the word, rather
than the spelling. So if you saw F + [picture of an eye] =, you would be intended
to gather fie, not feye – which is not an English word. Benjamin Franklin used this
kind of writing, without the plus and minus signs, in his brief article, “The Art of
Making Money Plenty in Every Man’s Pocket.”

In rebus puzzles, it is common to find

 8 for ate or a syllable with that sound


 4 for for, and
 2 for to or too.

So, you can have:

 gr + 8 = great
 4 + T = fort
 2 + L = tool

To this extent, the rebus has some common ground with texting language, also
known as txt or txtspk, but while texting language employs these devices to save
space when communicating on, for example, mobile phones, rebuses use them
for entertainment.

Other popular rebus pictures include:


 a honey bee for the sound /be/
 a hand saw for the sound /saw/
 a knot in a rope for the sound /not/
 a sheep for the sound /ewe/
 an open food can for the sound /can/
 R for the sound /are/

Rebus Relations. Besides the puzzles, there are rebuses that convey
meanings by the way words are arranged on the page.

HEAD
HEELS

shows the phrase “head over heels.”

SAILING
CCCCCCC

means “sailing on the seven seas.”

This is a way that rebuses are enjoyed after childhood is past.

Advantages

 The word – pictures draw attention to key concepts in the text


 Help develop early vocabulary
 Makes the text more meaningful and easier to remember.
 Effective in improving reading outcomes of students with disabilities
 Help many students in writing process

Disadvantages
 The pictures contained as rebus were not clear to pupils.
 there were too many difficult words that could not be shown in picture
form.

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