Jennifer Asha

Educational Publishing Awards Australia 2023 SHORTLISTED for the Primary: Reference Resource category

Never has it been more critical for our students to be visually literate. The use of visual images to convey information, tell stories and persuade the viewer in complex and sophisticated ways is prevalent in many modes of communication in our society. To be literate is therefore now about more than being able to read printed text; it is also about closely viewing, deeply understanding, meaningfully engaging with and critically responding to visual texts. The potential of the visual: Teaching literacy with multimodal texts gives teachers the pedagogical knowledge and practical tools you need to teach your students to become active, aware and critical viewers.

Part 1 of the book outlines the theoretical knowledge that teachers need to teach viewing as an integral part of teaching literacy. It puts forward a pedagogical framework, translated into a teaching and learning cycle, for teaching literacy in our visually rich environment. Part 2 uses a variety of high-quality multimodal texts – picture books, advertisements and videos – to demonstrate the teaching of viewing in authentic contexts. Each of these chapters, separated by year groups, provides a lesson example for an imaginative, an informative and a persuasive text. The example lessons can be extended to include investigation of other visual and verbal features evident in the focal text as part of literacy learning.

Sample chapter

Sample Chapter (.pdf 553 KB)

Intended audience

Please note the book below is in print format: click on the eBook tab above to order a digital copy.