What is visual literacy?
The Toledo Museum of Art defines visual literacy as the ability to read, comprehend, and write visual language.
The links below take you to videos created by the Toledo Museum of Art. Watching these will enhance your understanding and hopefully increase your enthusiasm for visual literacy activities in your classroom:
Dr. Martha Champa
For additional definitions of visual literacy, see below:
“the ability to ‘read,’ interpret, and understand information presented in pictorial or graphic images” (Wileman, 1993, p. 114)
Dr. Susanna Hapgood
Sinatra (1986) says “the active reconstruction of past visual experience with incoming visual messages to obtain
meaning” (Stokes, 2001, p. 12).
“a group of competencies that allows humans to discriminate and interpret the visible action, objects, and/or symbols, natural or constructed, that they encounter in the environment”
“the ability to turn information of all types into pictures, graphics, or forms that help communicate the information” (Wileman, p. 114).
Heinich, Molenda, Russell, & Smaldino (1999) say, “the learned ability to interpret visual messages accurately and to create such messages” (Stokes, 2001, p. 12).
How important is it to include visual literacy into our curriculum?
If the videos have not help you answer this question, read below to get a glimpse of the research that has been published on this topic:
“Visual literacy incorporates color, shape, spatial representation, print, messages, meaning and communication. When teachers use visual methods as a tool for thinking and communicating, students can experience new ways of learning that builds on their identities and knowledge outside of school” (Wiseman, 2016, p. 538).
"Visual literacy skills equip a learner to understand and analyze the contextual, cultural, ethical, aesthetic, intellectual, and technical components involved in the production and use of visual materials.
A visually literate individual is both a critical consumer of visual media and a competent contributor to a body of shared knowledge and culture” (quoted in Ma, 2015, p. 2-3).
“Visual images present concrete details that make them immediately accessible in a different way than verbal texts. At a glance, the viewer can be drawn into a dialog with the image, use it as a prompt for exploring personal meanings, and go on to connect these with wider issues.” (Roswell, McLean & Hamilton, 2012, p. 447)
“Nelson’s picture superiority theory describes how people learn concepts more easily by viewing pictures than by reading text alone because human brains are essentially hard-wired for visuals – the very architecture of the visual cortex provides direct access to human consciousness (Clark & Mayer, 2011). Further, Pavio’s (1971) dual coding theory hypothesizes that when people view an image, they encode the information with both a verbal and image code, activating multiple neural pathways to support memory. From an instructional perspective, infographics support attention, minimize cognitive load, create aesthetically appealing artifacts, activate or build schema by using objects and information known to learners, and motivate" (Clark & Lyons, 2010, p. 45).
“First, visuals help improve memory and recall. Research has shown that people are capable of recalling hundreds to thousands of pictures, even when having seen the pictures for only a few seconds (Zull, 2002). Thus, the more visual an instructional or informational message is, the more likely it is to be recognized and recalled (Medina, 2008). As a result, visuals have the potential to be an efficient, precise, and clearer way to communicate than oral and text alone. Visuals also can assist with cognitive processing by providing a context or metaphor. When visuals are used effectively, they serve to help people understand abstract, complicated, and complex information, especially when people are unfamiliar with the concept and do not have a pre-existing mental model to assist with the comprehension of new information.” (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2016, p. 44)
Dr. Susanna Hapgood
To learn more about visual literacy, click on the buttons below:
References
Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2016). Getting graphic about infographics: design lessons learned from popular infographics, Journal of Visual Literacy, 35(1), 42-59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1051144X.2016.1205832
Ma, Y. (2015). Constructing and reading visual information: Visual literacy for library and information science education, Journal of Visual Literacy, 34(2), 1-22.
Roswell, J., McLean, C. & Hamilton, M. (2012). Visual literacy as a classroom approach. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 55(5),
444-447.
Stokes, S. (2001). Visual literacy in teaching and learning: A literature perspective. Electronic Journal for the Integration of Technology in Education, 1(1), 10 – 19.
Wileman, R. E. (1993). Visual Communicating. Educational Technology Publications: Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Wiseman, A. M., MäKinen, M., Kupiainen, R. (2016). Literacy through photography: Multimodal and visual literacy in a third grade classroom. Early Childhood Education Journal, 44, 537–544.