Images can greatly enrich the students’ understanding of a text or other media, but to be able to interact with these deeper levels of meaning, students must possess the necessary skills to access those depths. While images can be used in isolation, they often accompany text or audio.
In a fast-moving world, with an ever-increasing diagnosis of attention deficit disorders, we increasingly rely on images to quickly convey meaning. We can think of visual literacy as involving the similar processes of interpreting images and creating images. Traditionally, we think of teaching literacy as the two way street of reading and writing. Helps Students Communicate with the World Around Them Around 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual in nature. The brain is even being able to see images that appear for a mere 13 milliseconds. Information presented visually is processed extremely quickly by the brain. Studies show that we retain approximately 10-20% of written or spoken information, but around 65% of the information when it is presented visually. One of the most effective ways to encourage information to make that important jump from the limited short-term memory to the more powerful long-term memory is to pair text with images. Research shows that there is a wide range of benefits derived from improved visual literacy including: It is essential that our students are fully equipped to process that information in all its forms.Ĭonsidering how visually orientated we are as humans, it is no surprise that images have such a powerful impact on us. Much of the information that comes to our students is a combination of both written text and images. PICTURE STORYBOOKS ARE VISUAL TEXTS Why is Visual Literacy Important? As with other types of literacy, visual literacy is about communication and interaction and while it has much in common with those other forms of literacy, it has some unique aspects of its own that students will need to explore specifically. As a general working definition, we can think of the term as referring to interpreting and creating visual images. We will also suggest some fun and meaningful activities you can use with your students today.įirstly, however, we need to get to grips with exactly what we mean when we use the term ‘visual literacy’. In this article, we will look at some approaches to help you come up with activities to use visual texts and teach visual literacy in the classroom. Screens of all shapes and sizes dominate our attention span, YouTube, and various social media platforms have replaced the book as the primary source of entertainment in the blink of an eye, and this is unlikely to change. It is more essential than ever that our students develop the necessary visual literacy skills to navigate this image-intense world we all inhabit.
In this age of the internet especially, we are constantly bombarded with images – both static and moving. This is not surprising given the importance the written word has played in all our lives, especially those of us who are too old to be considered ‘digital natives’.ĭespite the primacy of the written word in our schools, it is not the only means of widely sharing our thoughts and ideas. VISUAL LITERACY IS KING OF THE INFORMATION ERAįor many people, mention the word ‘literacy’ and an image of a library filled with dusty books is conjured up. Other great articles related to visual literacy.Activities for the Teaching of Visual Literacy in the Classroom.Visual Literacy Clues: What Are They and How Do We Read Them?.What Forms of Visual Text Are Used in the Classroom?.VISUAL LITERACY IS KING OF THE INFORMATION ERA.Hyperbole: A Complete Guide for Students and Teachers.13 Literary Devices to Supercharge your Writing Skills.Literary Devices & Figures of Speech Expand.Writing engaging Characters and Settings.5 Paragraph (Hamburger) Essay Structure.
#ENHANCE LEARNING WITH TEXT AND VISUAL HOW TO#
How to Start an Essay with Strong Hooks and Leads.
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