"This book explores the many
dialogues that exist between the arts and literacy. It shows how the arts are
inherently multimodal and therefore interface regularly with literate practice
in learning and teaching contexts. It asks the questions: What does literacy
look like in the arts? And what does it mean to be arts literate? It explores
what is important to know and do in the arts and also what literacies are
engaged in, through the journey to becoming an artist. The arts for the purpose
of this volume include five art forms: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and
Visual Arts. The book provides a more productive exploration of the
arts-literacy relationship. It acknowledges that both the arts and literacy are
open-textured concepts and notes how they accommodate each other, learn about,
and from each other and can potentially make education ‘better’. It is when the
two stretch each other that we see an educationally productive dialogic
relationship emerge." Georgina Barton PhD
Chapter 13: Using Visualisation
and Imagery to Enhance Reading Comprehension
"Reading comprehension is a dynamic process that
requires readers to construct meaning while they are decoding text. During the
reading process readers do not normally retain verbatim text information but develop
other, more flexible knowledge structures. Skilled readers do this by
constructing a mental model incorporating both visual and verbal information in
the form of a cohesive representation of the meaning. The construction of a
mental model is formed by the integration of the reader’s prior knowledge with
the text structure or story content. For example, good readers tend to make
bridging inferences by incorporating their own relevant background knowledge to
fill in the gaps when important information is not given in the text. When
readers are taught to visualise story events they are able to make appropriate
inferences because visualising enables them to draw on their own prior
knowledge and life experiences. As readers visualise while reading they become
more engaged with the text, enjoy what they are reading, and often imagine
themselves as if they are actually in the story. Imagining story ideas during
reading links information in working memory and makes the encoding and recall
of information more efficient. This chapter discusses how visual imagery techniques such as
drawing, manipulating objects, forming mental imagery, developing
characterisations, and using story structure can improve reading comprehension
performance." Dr Gary Woolley PhD
