Visual and verbal literacy skills are crucial to children because of their relationship to reading, and to adults because of their social utility. Such skills are, paradoxically, among those least often developed in a systematic fashion in elementary schools. One reason for this is that component subskills of visual and verbal literacy are…

This dissertation consists of four studies which identify some areas of difference between viewers who use the film medium in a personally profitable manner and those who use it less well. In Study 1 a theoretical definition of "film analyticity" is developed. An analytical film viewer is defined as an individual who (1) values the film medium for…

Bound in a slipcover rather than in signatures, this "book" is made up of thirteen separately bound booklets. The first booklet is an introduction to the use of film in the classroom both in teaching the filmic art and in increasing the visual literacy of students on the high school and early college levels. The twelve other booklets each treat a…

Knowing how to read is a very important aid in accelerating mental activity and curiosity in children and thus opening up new regions of thought and experience--one of the broad goals of education. However, reading should not be defined solely in relation to print media. Other languages, such as film, can enrich the study of all humanities…

Visual sequences should be the first visual literacy exercises for reasons that are physio-psychological, semantic, and curricular. In infancy, vision is undifferentiated and undetailed. The number of details a child sees increases with age. Therefore, a series of pictures, rather than one photograph which tells a whole story, is more appropriate…

Neil Postman's article, "The Politics of Reading," reprinted here from the May 1970 "Harvard Educational Review," is the core of this book. Eight persons involved in various ways in the communications field (Claudia Converse, Ralph Staiger, William Jenkins, Robert E. Beck, John Donovan, Frank Smith, Lee Deighton, and Robert F. Hogan) reply to…

The combined theories of cue summation and stimulus generalization provide the theoretical model for this study. First, the study attempted to determine if supplementing a theoretical presentation of rhetorical principles with printed, audio, and audiovisual speech models would contribute to a significant increase in learning as evidence by…

It is fruitless to debate whether visual literacy is a new or old concept. It is important to train today's children in visual literacy because the mass media are more vital to them and take up more of their time than do the schools. As part of a pilot project designed to deal with the problems of reading and verbal-visual communication, a group…

After considering evidence of the importance of television in the lives of children, the background and directions of the visual literacy movement are explored. The effects of television on the child are then considered within a framework based on the work of Piaget, whose studies suggest there must be significant differences in the way television…

Children growing up in this technological age need to develop nonverbal communication skills as well as verbal skills. The authors review the importance of various types of visual communication and visual literacy, and suggest projects for classes or individuals using cameras, films, and other media to stimulate visual communication skills. (AV)

This study focused on the psychological process involved in drawing inferences from pictures. Nineteen reference tests and two tests of picture interpretation behavior were administered to a random sample of 95 children aged 10-12: the Production of Inference Tests (PIT) and the Discovery of Similarities Test (DST). (JEG)

Discusses importance of the ability to visualize images evoked by the written word in the development of children's skills in both reading and creative writing. Specific skills involved are noted, examples from picture books are given, and 48 picture books that would be useful to developing such skills are listed. (EM)

Presents a lesson plan based on John Singleton Copley's 1795 oil painting, "Portrait of Nathaniel Hurd." The goal of the lesson is to give students in grades four through six an awareness of portraiture and how portraits record not only character but historical times and customs. (JDH)

"At the Piano," an oil-on-canvas painting completed in 1859 by James Abbot McNeill Whistler, is used as the basis of a lesson designed to help junior high school students analyze the painting's mood, subject matter, and composition. (JDH)

Defines aesthetic scanning, the perceptual activity that artists use when creating art and that connoisseurs use when contemplating it. Shows how to ask questions that elicit information about the sensory, formal, expressive, and technical properties of a work of art. (JDH)