In a single day individuals analyze many moments of time. Individuals take in a new view very quickly, usually not seeing all of the details within that moment of time. Pictures allow people to stop time, capture a moment, and “deep-read” the captured moment. Pictures usually provoke questions or spark collaborative discussion. Asking question like: What is this picture about? How would you describe the moment? What do we know from this picture? What can we guess or infer from this picture? This is much like reading and comprehending written words, except the reader must develop the picture of the written words.
Comprehension of pictures or words requires a student to play detective, examine the unseen and seen information and analyze it against their stored information—what you already know. This is “deep reading” the story or moment of time looking in between and behind the scene of a picture. Many individuals learn how to infer naturally through their environment and will be able to infer or comprehend what the picture or words are trying to convey. Some students will need explicit, purposeful instruction to learn and practice the skill, especially those in the primary grades.
Inferencing is harder for younger students who think concretely. Most students begin moving from concrete thinking to abstract thinking during Grade 2 or 3. Each student will have a different perspective of the picture – which is dependent on their personal experience. Whole group discussions help students to understand the picture from different perspectives and build knowledge about the picture topic. In some incidences, teachers may need to scaffold the discussion by adding background information or asking leading questions that may allow for student comprehension of the picture. The discussion often lends support for students to think abstractly.
Discussion or collaboration with others about a picture will increase student lexicon. This is especially true when “brainstorming” words that may help to describe the picture in a group setting. Students enter the classroom with different backgrounds and experiences that usually assist in developing each participating members individual vocabulary. The discussion also helps students to connect familiar words with a different topic. Students will often use these words within their writing, which begins the process of ownership or using the unfamiliar words within their speech and writing without much thought.
Picture reading in collaboration with others usually assist in developing writing skills. Many students struggle to incorporate descriptors or adjectives in their writing. Students who write down the gathered words from the group discussion, may use them to write sentences or a paragraph to describe the picture. A descriptive word list generated by students might be placed on an anchor chart, so that multiple learning levels may participate in the writing process. The length or complexity of the sentence will be different depending on academic level of student and the intended writing outcomes of the lesson. When student ownership of vocabulary increases, the complexity of the sentence usually increases. The writing outcome is their interpretation of the picture.
Learning how to read and comprehend pictures helps students to accurately comprehend written words. Analyzing moments of time usually happens naturally, while learning how to read and comprehend written words does not. Comprehending written words is a learned skill.
