Visual literacy--seeing with insight--enables child viewers of pictures to examine elements such as color, line, shape, form, depth, and detail to see what relations exist both among these components and between what is in the picture and their previous visual experience. The viewer can extract meaning and respond to it, either by talking or writing about the pictures. Picture books in elementary classrooms can be used effectively (for example, "The Three Little Pigs") if planned around a sequence of stages that children can move through, namely (1) describing what they see, (2) comparing it with other visuals, and (3) valuing one of the pictures they are studying. In order to build a rationale for including visual literacy experiences in the curriculum, baseline data about what students can do in this area and developmental data showing the effects of planning and teaching a sequence of lessons are needed. Initial data gathering suggests that a curriculum which includes studying pictures analytically should easily lead to a deeper response to pictures. This in turn should make experiences with picture books far richer than is currently the case, when most instructional emphasis is on the story line. In the process, children will develop the skill of looking at visuals, which should be transferable to other contexts. (NKA)