During Week 3 of Term, Primary students participated in Visual Literacy workshops facilitated by Ms Beth Rodgers from The Literature Centre in Fremantle.
The interactive sessions comprised of reading story books with students while investigating the illustrations through Ms Rodgers’ careful questioning, active movements and vocal expressions.
The visual nature of these sessions appealed to the young students. Year 5 student, Hugo said, “I enjoyed learning how you can use pictures so well to tell stories without actual words.”
Nina, another Year 5 student, also enjoyed the session saying, “I liked learning how you can get inspiration from other people’s drawings to help with your own storytelling.”
With the sessions focusing on the illustrations of the books to tell the stories, students who do not necessarily read as much are more engaged. This session saw the students investigating Teacup by Rebecca Young and Matt Ottley. “The aim was for students to read the artwork and illustrations using visual literacy skills to predict what is happening by observing colours, body language, facial expressions, composition and structure of the pictures,” explained Ms Rodgers.
When asked what she looked forward to most with these sessions, Ms Rodgers said, “The students, definitely. Their faces when you show what’s happening in the story, as they learn, they open up more and more, and they understand that interpreting the text is their own opinion, not what everyone else thinks.”
