Week 4 Readings

The article I enjoyed the most was "Theories and Practices of Multimodal Education". I love picture books because they can hold so much meaning. A picture book can tell a story without words, and this article goes into detail about that. In TE348 I did a project on one picture book in particular called "Flotsam". I loved this book because it had no words but told an amazing story. It told a story through pictures and the arrangement of those pictures on the page. These types of picture books, the ones that involve more than text, enable a more meaningful discussion surrounding it. The article said that, "in children's books today, written language is no longer central," and that more importantly are the "conversations that can happen around the text as meaning is made." Having a books that includes features beyond the actual text allows for so much more interpretation about the story which leads to more discussion. This kind of book is more interactive and brings out different opinions and viewpoints. Each reader can interpret a book differently that involves so many modes. After reading this article and from my own experiences in and out of the classroom, I think multimodal picture books are more beneficial to the reader. Reading a book with more than one mode ("paper, size, point of view, framing, arrangement, medium...") allows for the reader to be creative and use their imagination. It gets the reader thinking more than just simply reading the words and looking at a picture that goes with it. Multimodal texts get kids engaged and hopefully will allow them to gain more from the book itself.