Visual literacy includes the ability to think, learn, and express oneself using visual symbols and images. It also includes the ability to deconstruct and analyze the meanings and messages within images. Developing visual literacy allows students to use visualization and imagery to form creative and critical thinking, foster memory, engage multiple intelligences, and represent their knowledge in unique ways.

1. Visualization and Literacy

2. Literacy is the ability to encode and decode
meaning using the culture’s symbol systems

3. .
Students must become literate with their
culture’s symbol systems

4. Visualization can form the basis for creative and critical
thinking.

5. Visual symbol systems offer unique ways of
knowing.

6. Allows students to think broadly – allows for use of multiple
intelligences.

7. .
Fosters Memory and uses
emotion

8.
Visualization can be used for learning as students
construct images to represent knowledge.

9.
Visual literacy includes the ability to think, learn, and
express oneself in terms of images.

10. .
Visual literacy includes the ability to deconstruct images. It can
be used to construct and represent knowledge

11. • Gambrell, L.B., & Bales, R.J. (1986). Mental imagery and the comprehension-monitoring performance of fourth-
and fifth-grade poor readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 21(4), 454–464. doi:10.2307/747616
•
• Gambrell, L.B., & Koskinen, P.S. (2002). Imagery: A strategy for enhancing comprehension. In C.C. Block & M.
Pressley (Eds.), Comprehension instruction: Research-based best practices (pp. 305–318). New York: Guilford.
•
• Braden, R.A., & Hortin, J.A. (1982). Identifying the theoretical foundations of visual literacy. Journal of
Visual/Verbal Language, 2(2), 37–42.
•
• Long, T. (2008). The full circling process: Leaping into the ethics of history using critical visual literacy and arts-
based education. Journal of Adolescent and Adult literacy, 51(6), 498-508.
•
• ONeill. K. (2011). Reading pictures: Developing visual literacy for greater comprehension. The Reading Teacher,
65(3), 214-22.
•
• Sadowski, M. & Paivio, A. (2001). Imagery and text: A dual coding theory of reading and writing. Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum
•
• Sarafini. F. (2011). Expanding Perspectives for Comprehending Visual Images in Multimodal Texts. Journal of
Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(5), 342-250.
•
•
• Wilhelm, J. (2004). Reading is seeing: Learning to visualize scenes, characters, ideas, and text worlds to improve
comprehension and reflective reading. New York: Scholastic.