Visual storytelling comes in many forms (e.g. films, comics, photographs, commercials) and is used for a range of purposes (e.g. to entertain, inform, persuade). Technological advances are enabling non-specialists to be consumers and producers of these works. Although many people are growing up surrounded by visual works, this does not mean that…

The research on short stories for children has focused in Greece mostly on their literary, pedagogical, linguistic and educational aspects. This paper attempts to approach Short Form Stories for children under the light of social semiotics, the main elements being the author's choices in sign-creation process and its interpretation by the reader.…

This article presents a tripartite framework for analyzing multimodal texts. The three analytical perspectives presented include: (1) perceptual, (2) structural, and (3) ideological analytical processes. Using Anthony Browne's picturebook "Piggybook" as an example, assertions are made regarding what each analytical perspective brings to the…

Children are natural visual learners--they have been absorbing information visually since birth. They welcome opportunities to learn via images as well as to generate visual information themselves, and these opportunities present themselves every day. The importance of visual literacy can be conveyed through conversations and the teachable moment,…

One way that people learn, remember and communicate is visually. We combine past experiences with new visual information to construct meaning. In this study, elementary teachers introduced their students to the peoples and places of the ancient silk routes using illustrations from two children's picture books, "Marco Polo," written by…

This paper examines children's responses to black and white illustrations in particular silhouettes. The study had two components; the first examined fifth graders' reactions to picture books using silhouette illustrations. The second part of the research analyzed students' responses when a dramatic context was used to view and respond to selected…

This book of readings consists of selected papers presented under five topics: (1) Research and Theory--18 papers including research on visual effects on attitude and cognition, students of different field dependence levels, modern and postmodern design on reader perceptions of news, effects of gray shades, short-term memory capacity differences,…