Weekly Reading #4 6809

I believe that a picture can be worth a thousand words.  Most people are visual learners, which would mean that some may need pictures to help them understand what something means.  This quote from the article ,“Many students' comments addressed the emotive power of illustrations and the role illustrations played in helping them understand the emotions of the characters,” further proves the importance of relating pictures to meaning of texts and concepts.  Sometimes just by looking at a picture, we are able to relate it to another idea or memory. (“Visual representations can provide the memory peg needed (Kozma, 1991) to connect with appropriate background knowledge.”)  On the other hand, sometimes a picture is not worth a thousand words.  (“When the text and illustrations do not match, the illustrations can actually interfere with comprehension and reduce learning (Willows, 1978).”)  We have to be very careful when we are using pictures or diagrams to help student learn and comprehend.  The wrong image could make the student learn the wrong thing, which would more than likely be embedded in their brain. 

The idea of learning with pictures is closely related to the assignment of creating an illuminated text.  We had to be careful what images, texts, animations, and music we chose.  One wrong thing could completely change the meaning of what we were trying to say.  But, with the correct images, we were able to give text a deeper visual connection.  I believe the use of creating illuminated texts in schools would be very beneficial.  I think it could help students with comprehension problems and all students by giving them the skills to analyze and understand the text by looking at a picture.