When you know how to read a pictograph, you can learn about the items being compared.

How to interpret pictographs

1. Know the title. The title of the pictograph will tell what the purpose of the graph is.
2. Next, we read the labels. It tells us what facts are being compared.
3. After knowing what pictographs represent, we read the key. It tells us the quantity represented
by each symbol.

This pictograph shows the number of apples sold for 5 days. As you can see it shows pictures or
images of apples instead of simply showing the number sold each day. For us to know the
number of apples sold per day we have to look for the key.

It says that every picture of an apple represents ten apples. Meaning we have to count by 10’s,
like 10,20,30,40 or we can simply multiply the number by 10. Like 4 apples x 10 = 40. But for
this lesson we will use counting by 10’s. Let’s try to count the number of apples sold on
Monday. Let’s count by 10’s. 10, 20, 30, 40 so the number of apples sold on Monday is 40.

Now, let’s have Tuesday. Again, let’s count by 10’s. 10,20, 30, 40, 50. There were 50 apples sold
on Tuesday.

What about on Wednesday? How many apples were sold? Let’s count by 10’s. 10, 20, 30 so
there were 30 apples sold on this day.

Now, Let’s have Thursday. 10, 20, 30, 40. The grocery store was able to sell 40 apples on
Thursday.

What about on Friday? Let’s count. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70. There were 70 apples sold on
Friday.