This is an ethnographic study of the literacy practices of a group of rural Northeastern Thai women participating in a community-based literacy programme. Field research for the study examined the women's literacy practices and domains of literacy use in daily life, and the strategies they used to negotiate day-to-day life tasks in the context of…

Research with adults has shown that the distortion of visual word features, and in particular of the multiletter features within words, hampers word recognition. In this study, "CaSe MiXiNg" was employed to examine the effect of disrupting visual word features on the acquisition of orthographic knowledge in children. During the training, 18…

In this article we examine a theoretical concept: cultural citizenship. Educators of color typically advance this theoretical perspective because it provides a way of probing into ways students' differing linguistic and cultural resources can be made visible and effectively included in literacy events both in and outside of school. Through this…

Seventh grade students entering South East Junior High in Iowa City come from eight elementary feeder schools, as well as from schools around the world. Their information literacy skills and knowledge of reference sources vary, but since all seventh graders and new eighth graders are required to take one trimester of Visual Studies, all entering…

The visual image is so information-rich that describing its content fully can be very problematic. Trying to codify or analyze the content in any systematic way often proves even more difficult. Nevertheless, reducing certain aspects of visual data to a set of numbers can be useful because it exposes characteristics of the message that might be…

Highlighting many of the author's own experiences as an artist and an art instructor, this paper laments the problem of visual ignorance among contemporary children and proposes a course in basic visual literacy. Such a course would teach form and content as interactive and synergistic concepts rather than as separate attributes. Students could…

This paper addresses the television program "Cheers" and demonstrates one way of interpreting the complexity of messages within the program. The interplay of visual messages within the "Cheers" programming is referred to as intertextuality, or the relation of one text to another to express an idea. Two basic types of…

This paper reviews the literature on visual literacy over the past 25 years. The following areas of visual literacy are reviewed: theoretical foundations of visual literacy; establishing a research agenda; visual vocabulary; visual learning/visual teaching; visual thinking; visual-verbal relationship; and visible language. (Contains 158…

This paper is a report on a decade of teaching visual literacy at the American University (Washington, D.C.). Visual literacy is defined as an awareness that comes with appropriate development of basic visual and aural competencies. The 15 reasons for studying visual literacy are perception, drawing, expression, brain awareness, design elements,…

Visual criticism is a major component of the new visual communication. Visual communication has changed through the advent of new technology which allows images to be combined and manipulated with relative ease. Visual criticism analyzes the forms and practices of image production and examines the roles of images in society creating a new dialogue…

Suggestions for organizing the material in teaching the visual qualities of films and television. (CH)

A test of relative effectiveness of visual and verbal modes of giving instructions. (CH)

The man aging editor of "Art Education" urges educators in all fields to work together in developing sensitive humane education which can lead youth to see their world aesthetically. (BR)

As the viewer watches the opening credits for the program "Entertainment Tonight," the screen comes to life with rotating shapes and spinning geometric patterns. One has the sense of travelling on an imaginary voyage through space. Many of the computer generated displays common now on television use such visual devices as linear perspective,…

Pictures abound in history classrooms and teachers use them in many different ways. They add--often literally--some colour to the past, helping us to imagine what different worlds were like. Pictures can be used quite legitimately in this way to fire imagination and stimulate interest. But we can also use them to develop important skills of visual…