During a study in a Kindergarten classroom, wordless and almost wordless picturebooks were presented as aesthetic objects that are read for pleasure, reward slow looking, and require engagement in significant semiotic work. Instruction about and adult mediation of picturebooks throughout the research communicated to the children that elements of…

Using a verbal protocol, this study investigated how 38 second-grade students identify, describe, and interpret five types of commonly used visual graphics in science texts (i.e., cut-away diagrams, maps, captioned photographs, flow diagrams, and hybrids). Additionally, we explored the challenges students encountered when interpreting these…