There are plenty of free teaching materials on this site. Any page can be downloaded for your own professional use in the classroom, but please read the box on the right first.
• FREE overview of visual texts NEW
You can download and print out a free Overview showing the most important visual texts in information literacy. This overview chart gives you a checklist of the visual "tools" in a writer's "toolbox".
Why not download this Overview chart to your iPhone? Then you will have it always in your pocket. How?
- On your iPhone use Safari to go to www.k-8visual.info
- In the menu list at left tap "Free materials for teachers."
- When this page loads, tap the Overview chart.
- When you see the chart, tap the Send icon at the foot of the screen It's the box with an arrow coming out of it.
- Tap "Add to Home Screen."
- Give it a name and tap Add.
• FREE examples of visual texts
New and recent visual texts added to our pages of free examples include Venn diagrams and block diagrams:
More about Venn diagrams here.
Roll over the image with your mouse to see what's inside the cactus.
More about block diagrams here.
Other FREE examples of visual texts which you can use to teach the basics of visual information literacy are listed here
• FREE worksheets
Worksheets and activities that can be downloaded and printed out for classroom use. These are Adobe Acrobat files.
The first of these is an introduction to nonfiction genres: explanations and procedures. Here
The latest of these free worksheets is a set of picture cards. Here
• FREE guide to map literacy
Maps are not just for "doing geography." We use maps almost every day in our adult lives, to get about town, to plan a vacation, to invite friends to a special event, to find a room in a new school, ... the uses are too many to list. In fact, map reading and map writing form a basic lifelong literacy skill. Click here
• FREE chapter from I See What You Mean
Complete chapter from Steve's book on visual literacy, I See What You Mean. This is the first classroom guide to visual literacy for K-8 teachers. It's illustrated with children's work and full of practical activities that have succeeded with teachers in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and NZ. Click here
• FREE chapter from The Information Toolkit
Complete chapter from the Information Toolkit series. These three books include examples of visual texts, information genres, and units of research work which you can photocopy for classroom use. This chapter explains how to use the books. Here
• FREE ideas for your classroom
Each teaching strategy has been thoroughly tested in K-8 classrooms. We provide detailed lessons plans for each strategy. The latest in our series is a strategy that combines literacy, visualizing and decision-making skills. Here
Copyright © Black Cockatoo Publishing PL 2011
