Description: Content area text is complicated because it requires that students possess some level of background knowledge. Without this knowledge, students lack the scaffold necessary to drive meaning from text. Also, many readers struggle to make sense of abstractions encountered in content texts. Typically, the more difficult the text, the more abstract the concepts encountered to challenge readers. Through the use of visuals, especially photography, art, graphics, and video, teachers can eliminate abstractions and provide a scaffold to move students through text.
Note: This is a strategy that can be used anytime students are reading; therefore, it does not have a step-by-step process.
- Use visuals /videos to help students make the abstract more concrete. This can help students quickly focus on concepts to develop understandings that will help them prepare to read or better understand what they just read.
- Use visuals/videos in the written text whenever possible. For example, while reading Romeo and Juliet, use scenes from various film versions or pair slave narratives with scenes from Roots or drawings of the auction block. Consider using documentaries and graphics with math and science concepts.
- Use visuals/videos to do what print cannot. When reading a play or historical piece, use video versions of the same scene or a historical depiction so that students can see and study various interpretations of the text.
- Use visuals/videos before reading if the material is unfamiliar or abstract. Depending on the topic, students can activate prior knowledge by discussing visuals or viewing a well-chosen video clip.
- Use visuals/videos while reading to provide students with a wider range of understanding and to increase reader engagement (i.e. Discovery Channel, History Channel).
- Use visual/videos after reading to supplement the reading with additional information or the same information in a different medium.
- Use visuals/videos as a way to provide an alternative version of the text against which to compare the printed text.
- Treat visuals/videos as a text where students utilize the same strategies and skills to derive meaning. Many strategies including graphic organizers lend themselves to the “reading” of non-print text.
- Have students create their own visuals to support text.