8. Read and Interpret this Pictograph
Pieces of Candy Per Child
= 2 pieces of candy
Mikey
Suzanna
Taylor
Editor's Notes
A pictograph is a kind of graph that uses symbols or pictures to represent numbers. We are going to break this pictograph down into the individual parts that make up a pictograph, and then we are going to put all the parts back together and read and interpret this particular pictograph together. Ready?
The title box at the top of the pictograph tells us what the graph is all about and how we can read and interpret it. This title box includes the title of the graph, which is “Pieces of Candy per Child”. This means that the graph is going to tell us how many pieces of candy each child mentioned has. The title box also includes an object as part of a scale.
The object in this pictograph is a symbol; it is a picture that represents a piece of candy.
When you are making a graph, it is sometimes easier to scale numbers down, to make one object = more than one of what it represents. This is why what you saw in the title box is called a scale. In this particular pictograph, the picture represents 2 pieces of candy.
Sometimes in a pictograph, the first column includes dates, times, locations, or other similar details that tell the reader what or who is related to the objects being counted. In this case, our first column includes the names of children who have candy: Mikey, Suzanna, and Taylor.
The second column of a pictograph tells us how many objects there are and whom or what they are in relationship to. In this instance – according to our scale – there are six pieces in the first row, eight pieces in the second row, and how many pieces in the third row? Do you remember what was in our first column and what that means in terms of what we have in these boxes? How does the number of candies relate to each child?
Let’s put all the parts of this pictograph back together. We have the title box including the title, the object, and the scale. Next are the two columns, each with three rows. How do we interpret this? Let’s start with Mikey. Mikey has how many pieces of candy? Mikey has six pieces of candy. What about Suzanna? How many pieces of candy does Suzanna have? Taylor? That’s right; Mikey has six pieces of candy, Suzanna has eight, and Taylor has four. Do you think we can try to read and interpret another pictograph?
