Making connections between "A picture is worth a thousand words" and the Illuminated Text activity

Does the Illuminated text have potential to support student learning in school ? There is great potential in aiding student learning with illuminated text.  Students that are struggling readers benefit greatly from pictures.  For readers who struggle, pictures operate beyond the decoration function (Levin, Anglin, & Carney, 1987.)  Students often struggle with decoding words and miss what they are actually reading.  They also don’t understand text due to lack of experiences.  Hibbing & Rankin-Erickson (2011) suggest, “In our work with struggling readers we have found that the use of sketches, illustrations, picture books, and movies provides students with information on which to build their internal images.  Rusted and Coltheart (1979) confirmed that poor readers frequently move from text to pictures to text as they read, using the pictures as a tool for understanding.  Struggling readers often don’t have imagery skills and due to this deficit, it often leads to a reading disability.

I really like the idea of having students to draw pictures to indicate what they have learned or what they haven’t learned.  Generally students would rather draw you a picture than to have to write you an essay.  This allows students that are normally not writing much in their essays to be able to really express themselves with really detailed pictures.  The use of picture books could be very beneficial too.   Students don’t always interperate the emotions that the text had tried to convey.  In research, Gombrich's (1982) arguments supported the conclusion that pictures are supreme in their capacity to arouse emotions.

Movies really are great at helping to build background knowledge.  They really motivate students to learn the necessary information needed to read the text.  The excitement of knowing what you are about to read can really encourage a reluctant reader to read books that are longer than they would usually read.  I like the idea of WRWR, watch read, watch read.  This really helps the teacher to point out specific details that she wants her students to understand.

The illuminated text has the potiential to support students with many necessary skills to become better readers.