1. Include visual literacy in literacy education.

• Encourage children to use illustrations to decode meaning from text
• Encourage children to form mental images when reading text
• Help children to describe, compare, and value both visual and written communication

2. Begin teaching children visual literacy skills even before they can read.

• Start with the literal and concretethen move to more abstract concepts
• Challenge children to think about what they see in an illustration
• Encourage children to reflect on illustrations and what they make them think will happen in the book they are about to read

3. Use illustrations in childrens picture books to teach aesthetics.

• Teach children the traditional design components of line, color, and shape
• Have children evaluate illustrations for strength, mood, and feeling
• Encourage children to describe why they like or dont like particular illustrations

4. Have children analyze book illustrations in relation to the books text.

• Ask children to track a books setting and atmosphere in its text and illustration
• Ask children match characterizations in both text and illustration
• Encourage children to study the validity of the content depicted in illustrations

5. Have children compare the mental images they generate in reading a book with the books illustrations.

• Encourage children to imagine what the main characters in a book would look and act like and then compare their thoughts to what is in the books drawings
• Challenge children to analyze if the illustrations in a book accurately reflect what the author had in mind
• Have children generate their own book illustrations and see how they compare to the ones in the book

6. Have children work in pairs to analyze book illustrations.

  Encourage one child to read the text as the other child examines the illustrations

  Have the children compare and contrast how their own mental images of the story compare with one each othersas well as the books images

  Challenge children to come up with a resolution for dealing with book illustrations that dont match their mental images

7.  Read picture books to children of all ages.

• Read a wordless picture book to nonreaders and use the images tell the entire story
• Read a picture book to older children in which the drawings support the story and together with the children analyze how the text and illustration work in tandem
• Read a postmodern picture book in which illustration and text have unique roles. Explore with children how this contributes to reading comprehension.

8. Use picture books to teach reading comprehension.

• Discuss with children how visual literacy contributes to their understanding of a story
• Have children analyze how illustrations present new meaning to what is offered in the text
• Have children analyze how illustrations reinforce and extend the same content that is presented in a books text

9.  Emphasize the cognitive nature of art.

• Encourage children to use art to make them think as well as feel
• Help children see the relationship between a books meaning and its art
• Discuss this quote from Rune Pettersson: Looking at and understanding both words and pictures demands a higher cognitive level than merely seeing that words and pictures are there.

10.  Involve children in being book illustrators.

• Have children author a book without illustrations and then author the same story, including illustrations
• Have children develop a traditional storybook in which the text and illustrations are mutually supportive
• Encourage children to try their hand at authoring and illustrating a postmodern picture book.