A rebus can be a method of helping involve young children in the act of reading, as well as two types of puzzle in which letters, words, and pictures are combined to convey a phrase or sentence. A rebus is a variation on a pun. In a pun, the sound and/or meaning of two words is made into a play on words. In a rebus, the pun is created by using pictures to evoke a sound that is identical or similar to a word or word part.

The Rebus in Reading. The rebus offers a way to enable children to help read a story before they can decipher print. In this type of story, a picture of, say, an apple, a cat, or a bird – some simple object that the child can identify and name – is substituted for the word, so the child can “read” that part of the story.

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.