Using visual literacy

Visual literacy has practical uses across the curriculum.

Learning science, technology, social studies, health and nutrition, history and geography, mathematics, arts and crafts all rely on visual texts such as maps, diagrams, graphs, timelines or tables.

Students can use a table to list all the questions they aim to answer. The table helps them to see how much they have researched and what still needs to be investigated.

 

Some key concepts

Visualizing is thinking

Drawing information, as a diagram, map or table, helps children to see how facts are connected, whereas "making notes" often provides only a collection of isolated pieces of data.

Visual texts do some things better than verbal texts; verbal texts do some things better than visual texts.

Verbal texts (texts made of words and sentences) are ideal for recording details and examples. They capture nuances, subtleties and ambiguities. But they are poor at showing the sequence and structure of ideas, that is, how all the pieces fit together.

Visual texts tend to simplify and generalize a topic and may omit minor details. But they are best at capturing the connections between the key details and show the structure or organizing principle of a topic.

For examples of visual texts click here.

Re-composing helps understanding

"Re-composing" means reading information in one form (such as words and sentences) and summarizing it in another form (such as a diagram or table).

If you ask students to re-compose the information, they can no longer simply copy their source. They need to think about what a paragraph means before they can summarize it as a visual text.

Re-composing is a key strategy in aiding comprehension.

NEW: More on Re-composing here.

Visual texts are graphic organizers

Visual texts, such as flow charts and tree diagrams, are ideal for providing a framework for writing.

Students can plan nonfiction writing by using a suitable visual text:

• Information report: use a table or tree diagram to organize the order of the paragraphs ("Which comes first? What goes next?").
• Recount: recall the key events along a timeline before starting to write.
• Explanation: use a flow chart to sequence the steps in an explanation.
• Procedure (instructions): organize the steps in the right order using a timeline or flow chart.
• Argument (persuasion) : use a flow chart to sequence in the best order all the reasons for a point of view
• Discussion: draw up a table of reasons "for" and "against" before making a decision about which side of a discussion you support

Diagrams are more accessible than words

Most young readers can interpret ("read") diagrams and maps long before they can read the same information in words and sentences.

Support their reading with information books that cue the unfamiliar words with clear diagrams, not just photographs.

Older children who are "unable to read" may be merely waiting for you to provide them with illustrated nonfiction. Not everyone chooses to read fiction.

 

Visual literacy across the curriculum

Reading and writing

• Use a diagram ("picture glossary") to provide key vocabulary when introducing unfamiliar or "technical" language.
• Flow charts, timelines and tables can help students to plan an essay (such as explanations, recounts, reports).
• Sometimes it is more helpful to summarize a text as a diagram or a table, instead of writing disconnected "notes".

  Science and technology

• Many scientific concepts are more clearly grasped when visualized as a visual text, such as a cross section (for example to explain how we breathe) or flow chart (to show an animal's life cycle).
• Relationships in nature can also be summarized as a web diagram (such as a food web) or flow chart (such as the water cycle).
• Step-by-step procedures ("how to...") can be followed more easily when arranged as a flow chart, storyboard, or timeline.

  Social studies

• Social relationships can be understood quickly if you sometimes use a web diagram (sometimes called a sociogram) or a tree diagram.
• Flow charts are useful in explaining topics such as recycling, habitats, interdependence and responsibilities.

  History

• Use timelines to summarize sequences of events
• Flow maps (maps with arrows showing journeys) help children to visualize exploration and migration themes
• Changes over time, causes of key events, and sequencing of events can be shown clearly using flow charts
• Line graphs help visualize economic and other changes over time

  Geography

• Graphs (line, bar, and pie) help students to grasp concepts such as climate, population change, and public opinion
• Flow charts help visualize topics such as the water cycle, climate change, globalization, and Earth processes
• Maps can be used to visualize political states, climate, vegetation, wealth and poverty, trade, war, and so on.

  Health and nutrition

• Use a pie chart to show the proportions of different food groups we eat
• A flow chart can help students to understand processes such as respiration and digestion
• Line graphs can record changes in body temperature, heartbeat, pulse and breathing before and after exercise
• Cross sections and cutaway diagrams help students to visualize how the body works

  Mathematics

• Young children can benefit from visualizing addition and subtraction using simple bar graphs.
• Spatial concepts are best shown in maps and diagrams.
• Some children can interpret problems more successfully if they are encouraged to visualize the key elements in a map or diagram.
• Graphing assists work in measurement and recording of data.

  Arts and crafts

• Use storyboards to support instructions in craft activities and explaining how different materials are used.
• Students who elect to take art subjects are identifying themselves as visual learners; build on their visual strengths by providing explanations as flow charts and organizing cooperative projects using tables and maps.

 

Some practical applications

Planning to write an essay (grades 4–8)

• Students who have prepared plenty of detailed notes on a topic still feel "lost" when starting to write their essay.
• Before starting the essay, therefore, ask students to plan it using one of these visual texts. Each text has a different purpose:
  • A tree diagram organizes the topic into groups and examples. It is ideal for writing an information report.
  • A timeline arranges events in time sequence and is useful in planning the order in which to write a recount.
  • A storyboard shows how an item changes over time, making it a suitable planning tool for writing procedures (instructions).
  • A flow chart sequences events in order and is one of the most useful visual texts, helping in the planning of explanations, procedures and recounts.
  • A table summarizes groups and allows us to compare them, aspect by aspect. This helps in the planning of a discussion of different points of view, or deciding on a choice of action.

  More on visual planners

  Summarizing (grades 4–8)

• When making "notes," a diagram with labels can help children to remember the meanings of unfamiliar words.
• A flow chart helps to summarize a sequence of events (in history) or cause-and-effect (in history or science).
• Use a table to divide the topic into groups and to suggest the order in which to write about them.
• Use a tree diagram to show how subtopics are related to main topics. More on visual summaries

  Research (grades 3-8)

• Use a table to list all the questions you aim to answer. The table helps you to know how much you have researched and what still needs to be checked .

  Comprehension (grades 3–6)

• Help children to concentrate on a text by having them guess its meaning first, connecting the key words in a web diagram.
• Ask students to read information in one form (such as an explanation in words and sentences) and to summarize it in a different form (such as a flow chart). This strategy, called re-composing, avoids "copying" and requires the student to figure out the key facts, guiding concept, and the structure of the information.
• Relate characters in a novel with a kind of web diagram called a sociogram.
• Plots and subplots in novels and picture books are best summarized in a flow chart. Simpler plots can be storyboarded.

  Learning to read (grades K–3)

• Illustrations help young readers to predict unfamiliar words. Make sure your nonfiction books include diagrams such as cross sections and flow charts, not just photographs.
• Diagrams with labels are more helpful than vocabulary lists for beginning readers. The pictorial part of the diagram helps them to see the meaning of each word and therefore to find the word they need.
• Beginning readers can interpret information in a map or diagram long before they can understand the "same information" written out in sentences and paragraphs.

  Problem solving / decision making (grades 3–8)

• Diagrams and maps can help us explain how things are made or how machines work.
• Use a table to compare alternative solutions to a problem. The table also helps us to make a decision because it arranges side-by-side the strengths and weaknesses of each possible "answer." More on decision making using tables.

 

These ideas are explained with examples and practical lesson plans in Steve's books.

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