Abstract
Three experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of including illustrations in beginning
reading materials. Experiment 1 compared reading materials consisting solely of simple prose
passages with materials consisting of the same passages plus informative illustrations depicting the
content of each passage. Reading proficiency improved more under the no illustrations condition.
Experiment 2 compared the informative illustrations with uninformative illustrations. Reading
proficiency improved more using uninformative illustrations. Experiment 3 compared uninformative
illustrations with no illustrations and found no significant differences between conditions. These
results were interpreted within a cognitive load theory framework. It was concluded that informative
illustrations are redundant and so impose an extraneous working memory load that interferes with
learning to read.