Although visual complexity is increasing and graphics are essential to support readers' comprehension of disciplinary texts, visual literacy receives scant attention. Research suggests that effectively instructing students to interpret discipline-specific graphics would yield better comprehension. However, before this line of inquiry can be enacted, we must determine the characteristics of graphics in contemporary content textbooks. Therefore, this content analysis evaluated graphics within third-and fifth-grade science and social studies textbooks. We coded 3,844 graphics by type and function and compared findings between disciplines using chi-square and post hoc comparison tests. Overall, graphics were coded into 9 major types (photographs being most frequent) and 54 subtypes, indicating a diversity of graphics. When comparing disciplines, science textbooks contained more diagrams and photographs, and graphics more often functioned representationally. Social studies presented both a wider variety of graphics and more interpretationally challenging graphics. Implications for disciplinary literacy and instruction are discussed.

Although convergent research demonstrates that well-designed graphics can facilitate readers’ understanding of text, there are select situations where graphics have been shown to have no effect on learners’ overall text comprehension. Therefore, the current meta-analytic study examined 39 experimental studies published between 1985 and 2018 measuring graphics’ effects on readers’ comprehension. We first quantified the overall effect on reading comprehension. Then, we considered interactions with learners’ characteristics, graphic types, and assessment formats. Our analysis revealed that the inclusion of graphics had a moderate overall positive effect (Hedges’s g = 0.39) on students’ reading comprehension, regardless of grade level. Regarding graphic type, we did not find a significant difference among pictures, pictorial diagrams, and flow diagrams. Only when compared to mixed graphics, pictures had a greater effect on comprehension. Additionally, compared with true and false assessments, graphics differentially benefited students’ comprehension on open-ended comprehension assessments and mixed format assessments. Implications for future research are presented.

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With the emergence of digital composing tools and daily immersion in social media, email, and other forms of digital writing, today's teachers must be prepared to teach writing with multimodality. Thus, it is important that teacher educators create experiences that allow candidates to compose digitally and reflect on the implications for K-12 instruction. One promising practice, digital storytelling, is a pedagogical practice for K-12 and teacher education that supports writing development, writer identity, and digital literacies. This chapter discusses research examining the ways that integration of a digital storytelling project invited teacher candidates to experience the multimodal, digital composing process as a way to develop their own writing with technology and consider the implications for teaching writing.