Running head: READING WITH VISUAL AND MEDIA LITERACY

Reading with visual and media literacy

Samuel Batey

University of West Georgia

READING WITH VISUAL AND MEDIA LITERACY

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the comprehensive instructional design plan put in place
for my client Ms. McGruder who is an elementary teacher in the DeKalb County School System.
After meeting with Ms. McGruder it was determined that some of her students were having
difficulty with reading comprehension. With the understanding of visual and medial literacy
principles it was recommended to integrate a re-designed lesson utilizing visual and media
principles. Based on research the re-designed lesson could produce enhanced learning and solve
Ms. McGruders issues by improving reading comprehension. The re-designed lesson will apply
multiple visual and literacy principles to combine text with images and colors.

READING WITH VISUAL AND MEDIA LITERACY

Client information and the instructional need

Ms. McGruder is an elementary teacher in the DeKalb county school system. Ms. McGruder has
been seeking strategies to improve reading comprehension with her third grade students. A
typical reading lesson for Ms. McGruders class would be to choose a passage, article or book to
model with the students. Sometimes she would display the passage other times she would do a
simple read aloud, or distribute copies of the reading material to her students. When reading
aloud she would read it once thoroughly and then read it again using out loud thinking, jotting
down notes, questions, and highlighting important information. The next step would be to talk
out how you would generate a main idea. Have an anchor chart then fill in each area and model
thinking aloud how you are creating each object. After this Ms. McGruder would do another
reading and have students do a think aloud, highlight, add questions and talk through
information. The students then would come up with the topic, title, and sentence to support.
Description of the re-designed lesson
After meeting with Ms. McGruder it was determined that it would be beneficial to use images to
increase reading comprehension with her students. Based on the principles of visual literacy the
best approach for this lesson would be to design a lesson using text along with images. This
theory of teaching and learning integrates Paivios Dual Coding Theory. This theory proposes
that the human mind operates with two distinct classes of mental representation (or codes),
verbal representations and mental images, and that human memory thus comprises two
functionally independent (although interacting) systems or stores, verbal memory and image
memory. Imagery potentiates recall of verbal material because when a word evokes an associated
image (either spontaneously, or through deliberate effort) two separate but linked memory traces

READING WITH VISUAL AND MEDIA LITERACY

are laid down, one in each of the memory stores. Obviously the chances that a memory will be
retained and retrieved are much greater if it is stored in two distinct functional locations rather
than in just one. (Paivio, 1986) Additionally, it was felt that using color would be effective in
creating visual impact for her students. Hagen & Golombisky state in White Space is Not Your
Enemy Color is eye-catching. It makes you look. Picture a black and white poster with one pop
of colora hat, for instancein bright pink. That bright pink immediately becomes a focal
point. Part of the attentiongetting power is the principle of contrast at work. But a colors
shade and intensity also play a role in attracting interest, whether as eye entry point, contrast,
wow factor or all of the above. (Hagen & Golombisky, p.114) Based on these principles part of
this lesson will incorporate use colors to identify parts of speech.

Why Visual Literacy is important

We live in a world where visual images are becoming increasingly important as most information
that we take in each day is presented as a combination of words and images. It is essential that
students not only have the capacity to deduce literal meaning from texts but also to develop an
understanding of how the texts are produced. It was decided to integrate visual literacy principles
into this lesson because visual literacy has been found through research studies to be a viable
tool that could provide diverse learners with UDL-based learning experience, especially through
using the visual images and graphic organizers as alternative means to access content, engage in
the learning process, and demonstrating knowledge understanding and mastery. (Wu &
Newman, 2008)

READING WITH VISUAL AND MEDIA LITERACY

What is Visual Literacy?
Visual literacy is the ability to decode, interpret, create, question, challenge and evaluate texts
that communicate with visual images as well as, or rather than, words. Visually literate people
can read the intended meaning in a visual text, interpret the purpose and intended meaning, and
evaluate the form, structure and features of the text.
Written and Visual Language
Some examples of teaching skills through visual literacy:

Exploring visual texts and the context in which they occur

Teaching the codes, conventions and structures of text to support students constructing

their own texts.

Using a series of strategies for reading visual texts and responding in writing/drawing

demonstrating understanding comprehension

Integrating visual and verbal texts
Reading and Viewing
Form a single Strand of the English profile because visual texts, like written texts,
involve the use of language to make meaning. Many of the skills and understandings
relevant to the study of written and visual language are the same.
Contextual Understandings
Relevant to the study of both written and visual texts:

Texts can be based on either fact or fiction

The use of language depends on shared cultural understandings
A text may have different meanings for different people

READING WITH VISUAL AND MEDIA LITERACY

Linguistic Structures and Features

Common to both written and visual texts:

Point of view
Sequence in plot and sub-plot
Narrative structures Expository structures

To incorporate visual literacy into this re-designed lesson the plan will:
Give children powerful messages about images, language, and literacy.
Students should learn to critically analyze the visual texts and the socio-cultural context
surrounding the information.
To make meaning from images, the reader uses the critical skills of exploration, critique, and
reflection.
Re-composing Helps Understanding

Re-composing means reading information in one form and summarizing it in another

from (such as a diagram or table).

Re-composing is beneficial because when students are asked to re-compose the
information, they must think about what a paragraph means before they can summarize it

as a visual text.
Re-composing is a key strategy in aiding comprehension

The following image will be used as a character study to teach comprehension:

READING WITH VISUAL AND MEDIA LITERACY

Students will be asked the following questions about the image above:
Literal (explicit)

What was the last thing Max jumped over?

Inferential (implicit)

Why did Max jump bigger and bigger things?

Creative

What else could Max have jumped over?

READING WITH VISUAL AND MEDIA LITERACY

Critical

What lesson is this story telling you?

Visual
What shows you Max will be in trouble at the end?

Artifacts and Standards

The artifacts used for this lesson are images which will be used for coding, decoding, critical and
creative thinking. The graphic organizer will be used to help students construct meaning; they
will be used to assess the students understanding of what they are reading. During instruction
the teacher will be able to observe her students thinking process on what she read as a class, as a
group, or independently.

The Visual Literacy Competency Standards addressed in this lesson are as follows:
Standard Three
The visually literate student interprets and analyzes the meanings of images and visual media.
Performance indicators:
1.

The visually literate student identifies information relevant to an images meaning.

Learning Outcomes:
a. Looks carefully at an image and observes content and physical details
b. Reads captions, metadata, and accompanying text to learn about an image
c. Identifies the subject of an image
d. Examines the relationships of images to each other and uses related images to inform
interpretation
e. Recognizes when more information about an image is needed, develops questions for further
research, and conducts additional research as appropriate

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Assessment
The above exercise with Max, Min and Mop will be used as a pre-assessment to determine the
students thinking skills. Post assessments will involve students reading a short story and drawing
a picture of what they read. Additionally, students will read a page of a story and be asked to
write down words that represent different parts of speech. For example students may be asked to
find all nouns and color them green.
Graphic Organizers
In this lesson the uses of graphic organizers are helpful for students progress from impressions
or reactions about a character to deeper understanding of the characters attributes. The steps for
using character maps are:
To choose a character from any book, short story, play, poem or film and ask students to start
describing the character.
The next step will be to project an overhead of the character map and ask students to recall some
of their descriptions. In which category would they fall (appearance, actions, or reactions of
others)?
Write their responses in the boxes. Are they evenly distributed among each, or are most in one
area? Ask students for suggestions to describe the character in all three areas. Write their
responses in the boxes. Are they evenly distributed among each, or are most in one area? Ask
students for suggestions to describe the character in all three areas. Have students write a

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paragraph discussing the character and their reactions to the character using the graphic organizer
for reference. Students can then use the printout independently to describe any other character.

READING WITH VISUAL AND MEDIA LITERACY

Here is a character map developed for this lesson:

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The visual below was used to utilize the impact of colors to teach parts of speech:
This lesson will use visuals with colors to teach students the different parts of speech. As shown
in this image the color red is used for adjectives showing how the word dazzling can change the
structure of the sentence.

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Copyright
Some of the images in this lesson are original images others were obtained from the internet. The
images used from the internet are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.
This means the pictures are completely free to be used for any legal purposes.

Client contact information

Ms. DeWanna McGruder
dmcgruder316@aol.com

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References
(2015). Retrieved 28 November 2015, from
http://readingrecovery.org/images/pdfs/Conferences/NC09/Handouts/Carry_Visual_Literacy.pdf
(2015). Retrieved 28 November 2015, from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED502353.pdf
Hagen, R., & Golombisky, K. (2013). White space is not your enemy. New York: Focal Press.

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