Criteria of Texts For Young

Learner: Visual Features

Does your child use his hands when he tells
you about his day? Does he remember faces,
but not names? Is he artistic? Well, all those
crayon markings on your sparkling white walls
could mean your little one is a visual learner.
Example of Visual Features
Visual learners learn best by watching. Gloria
Moskowitz-Sweet, licensed clinical social
worker and coordinator of Parents Place
Express, defines the visual learner as someone
who needs to see it to know it.
According to Moskowitz-Sweet, a
visual learner may:

Have a strong sense of color and be very color-oriented.
Need to look at the person hes talking to in order to keep focused.
Write things down as a way of remembering.
Use his hands when he talks
Overreact to sounds or be easily distracted by noise
Hold images in his head. A visual learner can literally see the
passage from a page in a book in his minds eye.
Often misinterpret words. Sometimes he simply may not get the
joke.
Notice details. Visual learners are very tuned in to similarities and
differences. Your child may say something like, She looks like
Grandma, except Grandma has more white hair and doesnt paint
her nails.

There are many ways to cater to a visual learners strengths.
Moskowitz-Sweet offers a few tips on how parents and
educators can help a visual learner succeed:
When you can, write it down for her, or have
her write it especially directions.
Use illustrations, charts, diagrams, and slides
to reinforce learning. For young children,
making colorful sticker charts for chores or
goals is very effective.

Give her colored markers and highlighters. If
she writes letters in color, she is more likely to
visualize the words and learn them.

Color code notes, toys, and other possessions.
For instance, try giving your child a big red box
for all of her red toys.

Provide a quiet place for her to read and
study.

Childrens ways of learning are as different
as the colors of the rainbow,
- Moskowitz-Sweet -
Visual Elements
Many children story book is told through both
text and pictures.
Many different purposes can be accomplished
through book illustrations.
They convey meaning and feeling by helping
the reader to visualize the physical settings
and the characters appearance and actions.
Some of the illustration books
The Picture That Mom Drew (1997)
By Katty Mallat and Bruce
McMillan.
Help student to become more
observant of illustrations and
their roles in books.
The visual elements are :
line,color,shape,texture and
composition.

Line
Stroke marks that form part of a picture and
often define its outline are called the lines.
The line of a pictures generally defines the
objects within the picture.
Artist may choose to use lines that are dark or
pale,heavy or light,solid or broken,wide or
thin,straight or curved,or have combination of
these elements.

Colour
Observed for its hue,lightness and saturation.
Colour maybe considered for the actual part
of the colour spectrum they represent.
The colour used must first compliment the
text.
For example :if the mood of the story is that of
calm and contentment,the illustrator may
choose soft,warm tones that strengthen the
emotional warmth of the story.
Shape
OR the spatial forms of a picture: produced by
areas of colour and by lines joining and
intersecting to suggest outlines of forms.
Can be evaluated for their simplicity or
complexity,their definiton or lack of
definition,their rigidity (as in geometric
shapes) or suppleness (as in organic shapes)
and their size.

Texture
Tactile surface characteristics of pictured
objects comprise the texture of a picture.(the
impression of how a pictured object feels is
its texture)
Maybe rough or a slick,firm or spongy,hard or
soft,jagged or smooth.
Some textures that maybe you already
know :
Composition
Arrangement of the visual elements within a picture
and the way in which these visual elements relate one
to the other and combine to make the picture.
Many artist arrange each of the illustration around a
single focal point ,which is often a key to understanding
composition.
Obviously,the details in the illustrations must not
conflict with those in the text
Surprisingly,many examples can be cited in which the
illustrator was not true to the text in all details.

Although children accept illustrations that are varied in all
visual elements and artistic styles,they have little tolerance
for inaccuracies.