Using Visual Literacy as a Stimulus to Support
High Quality Literacy Teaching and Learning.
Jane Denyer
Why do I use Visual Literacy?
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Engages
Excites
Inclusive
Stimulates
Supports
Encourages talk
Broadens perspectives
Raises attainment
Makes successful learners
Because it personalises learning and follows children’s
interests, making literacy learning accessible to all
abilities
How do I use Visual Literacy?
• Every literacy unit I teach has a visual literacy
element.
• It integrates in ANY phase of teaching.
• It is used as a stimulus, to develop learning and
sometimes as an outcome.
• I also plan 1 topic centred around film – last year
year our topic was ‘Amazing Animation’, I have
also done a topic about Antarctica, Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory,
• I use film in all curriculum areas.
Learning to Read Film
C’s and S’s
• Colour, character, camera.
• Story, setting, sound.
As we teach our children to interpret intent
in film, we are teaching them skills which
support key areas in reading.
Learning to Read Film
Supporting Reading AF’s
AF2 – understand, describe, select or retrieve information, events or ideas from
texts and use quotation and reference to text.
AF3 – deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts.
AF6 – identify and comment on writers’ purposes and viewpoints, and the overall
effect of the text on the reader.
The rich discussion about visual texts which develop
as we teach our children to read film transfer into
guided reading sessions.
Interpreting Colour Use
• Film makers use colour to create
atmosphere, imply information about
characters, send messages to the viewer.
• By teaching our children to understand
these techniques we are actually helping
them to infer.
Interpreting Colour Use
Good or Bad? How do you know?
Interpreting Colour Use
• Good or bad?
Character Analysis and
Development
•How does the character
look?
•What type of character do
we think he is?
•How does his colour affect
our view of him?
•How does he feel?
•How do you know?
•What do we predict he is
going to do?
•How does our perception of
the character change as the
film develops?
Adding Mystery and Intrigue to
Stories
Adding Viewpoint to writing
Discussing how the camera is used to give different viewpoints in storiesHow hard is it go get children to write with a sense of viewpoint, or identify in
their reading?
Understanding Story
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Film gives a clear narrative with the desired text features to discuss. It
teaches children about genre features and the wholeness of a story. By
using someone else’s story line it liberates children to focus on other writing
skills (description viewpoint etc)
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Story mountains
Story sequencing
Building tension
Links across the whole
story
• Narrative devises such
as flashbacks (Charlie
and the Chocolate
Factory)
Nightshift
Developing Settings
• How would you describe the setting? (how much more
can you see because I have used a still image?)
• What genres would this support?
Use of Sound
• Analysis of sound use in film and incorporating
sound in settings and descriptions adds another
dimension to story writing.
• Listen to a soundtrack from visual text – what is
happening? How does the sound enhance what
is on screen?
• diegetic sound is actual sound - talk,
background noise etc
• non-diegetic sound is commentary sound –
narration, sound effects, music etc
Research
Combining information from different texts:
Dear Greenpeace, non-chronological text about whales,
Octonauts, Blue Planet.
Stimulating Talk
All visual literacy empowers children to talk and gives a visual
reference to discuss in a sophisticated way.
BFI – Dangle
Explores the possibilities of power – what would you do if you could
turn off the sun?
Developing Dialogue
Play sections of film without sound.
Look at films with characters who
communicate in different ways.
Use foreign language films.
What could the characters be
saying?
Add speech bubbles to stills.
What does the film script look like?
How do we transfer dialogue to our
own stories?
Teaching Specific Genres
BFI – Tom Sweep
•Letters of complaint
•Letters of resignation
•Job advert
Developing Emotional Intelligence
Linking with ICT
• When our children understand the film techniques use by
film makers they are able to apply their learning to make
their own films.
What do I use?
This is by no means an exhaustive list • Short films
• Extracts from longer films
• Live action and animation
• Documentaries
• News reports
• Films made by children
• Online resources – BBC i-player, Yorkshire Film Archive,
Espresso, Youtube downloads
• Photographs
• APPs on ipad
• Interactive texts