Do You See What I Mean

Tomorrow’s lesson I am going to have visuals as we review. I believe this will benefit all of the students not just the 2 indicated above. The visuals will give more information than my examples or from the words of the text book.

While picture books have been primarily used in elementary grade classrooms, many picture books target an older audience and could be used across the middle school curriculum to provide an introduction and foundation to a new unit of study, to stimulate and engage new learning and to create a foundation for further study in art, social studies, science, math and health.

In addition the act of showing students the particular information has the effect of allowing them to create their own understanding of the text. It allows students to examine the process of discerning important information from that which is immaterial. "Since understandings cannot be transmitted, merely telling children the relationships in some topic seems unlikely to provide much of a press for understanding. Nevertheless explaining can work when…a conceptual model such as an analogy or an example can highlight what is important and make connections easier to notice" (Newton 2001).

Students are thus learning through the representation in options for language, mathematical expressions and symbols, with strategies to Clarify vocabulary and symbols, syntax and structure, promoting understanding across languages, illustrating through multiple media, decoding text, mathematical notation and symbols. Furthermore, representation provides options for comprehension, activate or supply background knowledge, highlights patterns, critical features, big ideas and relationships, guide information processing, visualization and manipulation, maximize transfer and generalization. ( National Center on Universal Design for Learning, 2014)

Technology helps students who have reading troubles when it comes to reading standard books. There are also many benefits of digital enhancement such as changing colors and fonts. Entrenching learning supports in content helps comprehension and building background examples; definitions, summaries, and key questions can be directly embedded to help with guide reading. Technology allows students to manipulate the text by copy and pasting.

Helping Children with Learning Disabilities Understand What They Read is an article by Regina G. Richards. Her article discusses the basic strategies and techniques that can be used for students with learning disabilities. The article states, a key component of comprehension is that the student must be actively

So you see, pictures, even in books help minds to develop each time you take a glance at them. You gain that freedom in your mind and can grow and expand to photography, galleries, museums, and even creations of your own personal art... the possibilities seem endless. I would conclude that picture books are helpful to people of all ages, especially the minds of children. Will you ever look at books the same

Picture books are a big part of a child’s life. They make the reading experience fun and a time to look forward too. They help children explore the world with their imagination and connect with characters and events. They also provide joy and comfort. Picture books show their meaning in a very unique way. They use verbal and visual text to relate to the world. Both verbal and visual text work together in synchrony to narrate the story. Meaning represented in this way invites the reader to attend to both in order to make sense of the story. Revisiting and old picture book is like revisiting an old friend.

Young children always read picture books. Because their reading skills are not developed yet, they need a picture to help them understand what is going on in the story. As children grow older, books have fewer pictures in them, and they eventually contain none. But why? Because older readers are “too old” to read a picture book?

Linguistic instructional methods, such as reading and listening, activate the left side of the brain, while non-linguistic methods, which incorporate the senses and movement, activate the left side. As a result, engaging both sides of the student’s brain in the learning process, through a balanced plan of instruction, is important. Such an approach is also believed to improve a student’s ability to remember and apply that information in the future. In order to facilitate this, the teacher must include the use of non-linguistic representations or cues in their lessons to make challenging content comprehensible. Such elements as visual aids - like graphic organizers, pictures, illustrations or images; hands-on experiences including the use of manipulatives or physical models that students can touch, move and create; physical or kinesthetic techniques using movement including gestures such as hand movements to illustrate concepts; and demonstrations, modeling

College or university students with disabilities could use the ePortfolio to showcase their characteristics of their learning strengths, styles, and needs. An ePortfolio made accessible to the visually impaired student could participate along with other students as a team member in an inclusive environment for a class project, a senior capstone or any other use of the digital portfolio. Just like any other student, an ePortfolio that equips the visually impaired through assistive technology can be a valuable tool in conveying that student’s interests and abilities. As assistive technology improves and various multimodal technologies integrate, an ePortfolio can create opportunities for students with disabilities.

The read/write learner is advised to: develop lists, make outlines, obtain study guides, take notes, and write words to the notes several times. It is also recommended to read notes silently, rewrite and paraphrase ideas into other words. Converting graphs, charts, and diagrams into worded statements help the student with a strong read/write preference to understand the meanings contained in the visual material. Meaning is found in words; therefore the student with a read/write learning preference should search for words that describe the meaning of a concept by breaking the concept into textual points. (Fleming, n.d.).

I chose to read and comment on Barbara Kiefer’s “Envisioning Experience: The Potential of Picture Books.” Kiefer’s main point in writing this essay was to get the message across that children enjoy picture books that allow them to identify and make connections with the characters or the plots, and that while reading and analyzing the pictures, they gain a better sense of aesthetics and how to interpret them.

The first article helps in addressing the how to develop literacy through images. In other words, what elements can one look to in order to assist in encompassing a greater understanding of a piece of art, literature or picture book. Specifically, though the first article discusses specifically the connection between visual literacy and textual literacy in picture books. Visual literacy is a great comprehension strategy for picture books. Picture books offer opportunities for novice readers to develop literacy. I believe that visual literacy is a stepping stone into what is considered the mainstream definition of literacy.

Brian Kennedy states that visual literacy is “the ability to construct meaning from images, a form of critical thinking that enhances intellectual capacity”. The textbook takes Jack Debes’s (1969) definition which was adopted by the International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA). It is an extremely long and drawn out definition but to simplify visual literacy by textbook is “The competent creation and consumption of visual messages.” Of course these are just abbreviated definitions as Brian Kennedy discusses visual literacy in his 16 minute video in detail and there is an entire chapter outlined to the definition in the textbook, however both definitions are similar in nature. Similarity in these definitions focus on receiving a message from images or visuals.