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PROFESSIONAL LITERATURE CIRCLE

Cassidy Shostak

In the article, Reading Pictures: Developing Visual Literacy for Greater

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

interpretation of the text (2016, p.154).

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

tone or composition, a strategy used to highlight, foreshadow, and sometimes to even

generate the storyline (ONeil, 2011, p.218).

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

sometimes unconsciously through advertisement, television, movies, magazines, and other

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

build their ability in regard to literature, but how?

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

feelings or messages each colour tends to convey.

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

the readers of their stories (having cross-curricular implications!)

REFERENCES

ONeil, K.E. (2011). Developing Visual Literacy for Greater Comprehension. The Reading

Teacher, 65 (3). Retrieved from

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

Teaching Strategies. New Jersey, USA: Pearson.

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