A Theoretical Perapective - Researchers and Educators
Learners of the 21st Century need to be taught how to be competent, indepentant, literate learners.
Characters from the alphabet begin as pictures that have meaning. It is not until the students develop an understanding of these letters and eventually create words that the letters are converted from pictures to text. Students need to become visually literate in order to understand messages and interpret information in almost everything that they do (Stokes, 2002). There are many forms of visual literacy to provide information to the readers and viewers. These can include:
· Gestures
· Objects
· Signs
· Symbols
· Films
· Written text
· Graphs
· Maps
· Diagrams
· Pictures
(Bamford, 2003; Stokes, 2002; Callow, 2003; Miller, 2007).
Information texts provide sources and visual stimulus for the viewers to interpret. Miller (2007) suggests that there is a social need for all learners to communicate through the use of visual literacy. Students need to be aware of information texts through the use of visual literacy to ensure that they have phonemic awareness, syntactic understanding and semantic insights. Stokes (2002) believes that children learn from models of good writing found in both relevant information texts and good literature. If comprehension of text is a priority, then why is the importance of visual literacy not clearly outlined in the English Essential Learning’s?
Although visual literacy is acknowledged in curriculum documents around the world, there is limited research into the specific understandings and skills that students need to interpret and understand visual information texts (Callow, 2003). It is important to be educated in visual literacy and to be taught and used effectively in the classroom but should not just be used by itself. It is best used in conjuction with other forms of written text to supply information. This ensures that the cognitive recognition becomes more embedded into the memory (Stokes, 2002). The brain uses visual images to assist in storing the knowledge into long term memory (Sousa, 2005).
Written texts are best transformed from the working memory to long term storage in the brain when it is graphically organised or supported with visual stimulus (Sousa, 2005). The cognitive learning style ensures students have the ability to perceive, remember, organise, process, think and problem solve information. With visual cues used as a tool to enforce this information process, learning is best achieved (Stokes, 2002). Stokes also suggests that most people have a tendency to think with words rather than with pictures, but believes that the use of visualisation in thinking is increasing due to technological advances. Visual literacy precedes the literacy in human development as it is the basic literacy in the thought process of reading and writing (Stokes, 2002).
“Students need to learn visually and teachers need to learn to teach visually,” (Stokes, 2002).
Lessons that have no graphics and visual support to the content influence those students with different prior knowledge as they attain descriptive and procedural knowledge (Chanlin, 1998). A study was conducted from Mayer, Bove, Bryman, Mars and Tapangco (1996) where they selected a group of students to conduct research on. They gave a piece of written text to a group of average learners. They then gave the same piece of information to a group of low level learners with supporting visuals to back up the content in the written text. The students then were asked to complete a work sheet that summarised their comprehension of the content. The outcome resulted in the low level students having a greater understanding of the topic than the average students (Stokes, 2002). This study demonstrates the importance of assuring the learners are supplied with the knowledge and have an understanding of visual literacy used as a tool to support information texts (Callow, 2003; Stokes, 2002; Miller, 2007).
· Gestures
· Objects
· Signs
· Symbols
· Films
· Written text
· Graphs
· Maps
· Diagrams
· Pictures
(Bamford, 2003; Stokes, 2002; Callow, 2003; Miller, 2007).
Information texts provide sources and visual stimulus for the viewers to interpret. Miller (2007) suggests that there is a social need for all learners to communicate through the use of visual literacy. Students need to be aware of information texts through the use of visual literacy to ensure that they have phonemic awareness, syntactic understanding and semantic insights. Stokes (2002) believes that children learn from models of good writing found in both relevant information texts and good literature. If comprehension of text is a priority, then why is the importance of visual literacy not clearly outlined in the English Essential Learning’s?
Although visual literacy is acknowledged in curriculum documents around the world, there is limited research into the specific understandings and skills that students need to interpret and understand visual information texts (Callow, 2003). It is important to be educated in visual literacy and to be taught and used effectively in the classroom but should not just be used by itself. It is best used in conjuction with other forms of written text to supply information. This ensures that the cognitive recognition becomes more embedded into the memory (Stokes, 2002). The brain uses visual images to assist in storing the knowledge into long term memory (Sousa, 2005).
Written texts are best transformed from the working memory to long term storage in the brain when it is graphically organised or supported with visual stimulus (Sousa, 2005). The cognitive learning style ensures students have the ability to perceive, remember, organise, process, think and problem solve information. With visual cues used as a tool to enforce this information process, learning is best achieved (Stokes, 2002). Stokes also suggests that most people have a tendency to think with words rather than with pictures, but believes that the use of visualisation in thinking is increasing due to technological advances. Visual literacy precedes the literacy in human development as it is the basic literacy in the thought process of reading and writing (Stokes, 2002).
“Students need to learn visually and teachers need to learn to teach visually,” (Stokes, 2002).
Lessons that have no graphics and visual support to the content influence those students with different prior knowledge as they attain descriptive and procedural knowledge (Chanlin, 1998). A study was conducted from Mayer, Bove, Bryman, Mars and Tapangco (1996) where they selected a group of students to conduct research on. They gave a piece of written text to a group of average learners. They then gave the same piece of information to a group of low level learners with supporting visuals to back up the content in the written text. The students then were asked to complete a work sheet that summarised their comprehension of the content. The outcome resulted in the low level students having a greater understanding of the topic than the average students (Stokes, 2002). This study demonstrates the importance of assuring the learners are supplied with the knowledge and have an understanding of visual literacy used as a tool to support information texts (Callow, 2003; Stokes, 2002; Miller, 2007).
