Once upon a time, nonfiction books for children routinely included concise, stodgy writing. Most of the books were text heavy, with just a few scattered images decorating, rather than enhancing, the content and meaning. But nonfiction has changed dramatically over the last two decades, evolving into a new breed of visually dynamic, engaging texts…

Reading and writing are increasingly performed with digital, screen-based technologies rather than with analogue technologies such as paper and pen(cil). The current digitization is an occasion to "unpack," theoretically and conceptually, what is entailed in reading and writing as embodied, multisensory processes involving audiovisual…

One of the key requirements of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English Language Arts is that students are able to read and access complex texts across all grade levels. The CCSS authors emphasize both the limitations and lack of accuracy in the current CCSS model of text complexity, calling for the development of new frameworks. In response…

Students read multiple-genre texts such as graphic novels, poetry, brochures, digitized texts with videos, and informational and narrative texts. Features such as overlapping illustrations and implied cause-and-effect relationships can affect students' comprehension. Teaching with these texts and drawing attention to organizational features hold…

Teachers need a deeper understanding of the texts being discussed, in particular the various textual and visual aspects of picturebooks themselves, including the images, written text and design elements, to support how readers made sense of these texts. As teachers become familiar with aspects of literary criticism, art history, visual grammar,…