Unveiling words within a picture

Abstract

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for New York State include a set of standards for Reading Informational texts (RI). RI Standard #7 details the requirements for students from preKindergarten to grade 6 related to the reading of expository texts and their visuals. Moving from requiring an understanding of the relationship of pictures to words to the contribution of pictures to a topic requires some visual literacy skills. This capstone project has explored the question of the role of visual literacy when reading pictures in an expository text, and how educators might tap into this role to assist struggling readers. The most appropriate way to answer this question was with a research synthesis. The exhaustive literature review and subsequent synthesis for this study produced three findings. The first is that the role of visual literacy and the reading of graphics changes as grade levels increase, from connecting to a reader's interest and attention in the preKindergarten to grade 1 levels, to inspiring mental imagery or drawing that increases topic comprehension by the grade 10 level, to providing accurate and detailed information in addition to that provided by the words at the collegiate level. The second finding is that students at all grade ranges appear to benefit from direct instruction on reading comprehension strategies that specifically address reading the visuals in an expository text, and the third finding is that direct instruction and implementation of research based reading strategies increase students' comprehension of expository text structure including visuals. [from abstract]