What is Visual Literacy and Its importance in Education.

Visual Literacy is nothing less than the ability to understand, interpret, and evaluate visual messages. It is based on the idea that pictures can be "read", communicating its meaning and making it easy to associate it with the text that accompanies it. 

Visual Literacy is something that has been primarily related to art, where students learn how to analyze paintings, and learn about techniques and concepts, such as lighting, color, or composition.

But today, visual literacy can be used in other disciplines; images are a major part of our world.  Images can be used to influence and persuade so why not use them to educate?
Visual literacy is a staple of 21 century skills, and it's reflected in the following standards:

• Common Core State Standards (CCSS)
  
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.7: "Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos or maps) with other information in print and digital texts."
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.7: "Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media.. "
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.6: "Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text."
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.1: "Prepare for conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively."
• National Council of Teachers of English Standards (NCTE)
  • Standard 1: Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts.
• The Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning Corporation (McRel)
  • Standard 9: Uses viewing skills and strategies to interpret visual media.
   

Visual Literacy is an universal language, with a complex structure that comes in a wide diverse of format such as :Advertisements,Cartoons,Charts,Collages,Comic books,DVDs,Graphic Novels,Graphs, Magazines, Photos, Pictogram,Signs, Slide shows, Symbols, or Websites.

This new Visual Literacy strategy is simple to execute, powerful, and effective, which helps students learn by interpreting images. With simple questions like What's going on in this picture?,What do you see that makes you say that?, or What more can we find,? we can spark children's cognitive interest in the subject that would engage them in a more effective way.
Images are considered a window to reality, so why visual literacy? Well, "because an picture is worth a thousand words." 


Sources:

Edutopia.orgIste.org- Visual Literacy
Vislit.org/visual-literacy/
Edutopia.org