Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Cassidy Shostak
Comprehension, Kathleen Ellen ONeil discusses the different forms of literacy when
reading a picture book. When reading picture books, students interact with both the words
and the illustrations, which both equally establish and enhance the story being told. When
discussing the skill of reading pictures teachers need to give students the strategies to
look at the pictures presented in a picture book and critically think about the style of the
picture and what that is telling them about the story. By giving students the skills to look at
the shapes, colours, line, and size they are more able to think deeper about the tools the
illustrator used to enrich the story. The practice of reading the illustrations contributes to
making the students more visually literate. Tompkins, Bright, and Winsor, also agree that
when students read pictures books they are able to learn more about the story by looking
at the illustrations and illustrators craft to think genuinely about how illustrations affect
The author condemns and pushes blame on elementary teachers for not teaching
students how to critically decode pictures; however, he does give teachers real strategies to
improve this type of literacy in our practices (after being a little rude; however, telling he
does express some truth). The connector in our group said her memories of being in
elementary school and her teacher reading books out loud to the class and held out the
book so everyone could see the pictures. Tompkins et al., argue that when teachers read to
children, they must ask children to make predictions, answer questions, infer ideas, and
engage in discussion (2016, p.81). When thinking about these discussions and despite
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being able view the pictures during read alouds are students truly thinking critically about
what the pictures tell us, like the text, or is it purely for their entertainment (which is
important as well)? In our literacy circle, we all have no memories of being taught how to
recognize the interactions between the text and the visuals in relationship to the
illustrators style which is color, lines, shapes to express feeling, describe qualities, or to set
In the developing stage of reading you will hear adults say to children, look at the
picture to help figure out the word. So in repetitive books, the text may read I like my
hat and the next page will read I like my cat the student is left to read one new word with
help of a supporting picture of a hat or cat (Tompkins et al., 2016, 83). This is developing a
sense of visual literacy at surface level for reading development, but why is this skill less
emphasized with reading practice and the words becoming more important? When
students are able to read or are listening to a story on the carpet the words become the
main focus of the literature and the pictures are purely used for enjoyment rather then
supporting the text which this article argues is a shift that is essential to get students fully
engaged in literacy.
In our group discussion it was mentioned that visuals influence us in our daily lives
influencers but was interesting was posing the question, how these pictures can alter our
comprehension? This indicates that we are using visual literacy skills to decode messages
from pictures, sometimes without realizing that we are using particular techniques. Our
literacy circle illustrator linked the concept of visual literacy to a contemporary connection
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of using and reading emjois. Lets be real, it is 2017, and most people use emojis in their
daily life to replace words or enhance a message. Students today have the ability to take
something as simple as a laughing cat to convey a particular message. This ability to read
pictures, in this particular example, is narrower then what the article considers reading
pictures in a book; however, it gives us a better, clearer idea of our students abilities of
reading pictures.
Therefore, our students may have a foundational set of skills that gives them the
ability to decode pictures so our jobs as teachers is to use this pre-existing knowledge and
Reading pictures will look differently according to the book, the teaching intentions
of the teachers, and most importantly the grade being taught. The inductor in our group
asked what strategies or activities we could use to teach students the skill of reading
pictures. In my PS1 my teacher got her students to look in their book bins and think about
what the characters were feeling and thinking based on the pictures. The students recorded
their thoughts on sticky notes to stick to the specific pages. This visual activity can be
expanded by giving students a particular element to look for in the pictures to investigate,
for example, colour, size, shapes, or lines. Through mini lessons and teaching interactions,
teachers can scaffold these skills to give students examples and strategies to decode
pictures. Perhaps, this could be going through the different colours and describing the
Another strategy discussed in our group is using quick writes as a writing and visual
literacy activity. Students are shown or given a picture, illustration, or painting where they
have to read the details to create a story or narrative of what they see. The class may have
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a discussion of possible questions they have from the photo, or details they notice to help
prompt student thoughts and writing process. By using the details they have noticed and
ones that were discussed students may start the process of being better visuals readers,
which can translate to supporting text. A similar activity to engage students in practicing
this skill would be asking the students to be an author for a picture book. They would
create their own stories based on the illustrations of the picture book by paying attentions
to the style, composition, and details to create a story that would essentially match the
illustrations. The students can then compare their stories to the authors for reflective
activity.
I am left thinking about how the author did not discuss using the picture/text
integration when considering students drawing their own picture for their stories. This is
an important skill to learn about how colours, shapes, lines, and size makes a difference to
REFERENCES
ONeil, K.E. (2011). Developing Visual Literacy for Greater Comprehension. The Reading
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uleth.ca/stable/pdf/41331601.pdf?refreqid=excelsio
r%3Ad00ede14cd5df32a9f8da66b30fdb3f8.
Tompkins, G.E., Bright, R.M, & Winsor, P.T.J. (2016). Language and Literacy: Content and