Slow looking: “reading picturebooks takes time”

Abstract

One of the main purposes of the classroom-based research featured in this article was to develop 9-year-old students' visual meaning-making skills and competences by focusing specifically on elements of visual art and design in picturebooks. The complexity of the picturebook format requires and rewards slow looking by readers/viewers. However, students need to receive instruction about and have opportunities for engaging in slow looking in order to develop the disposition to do so. The discussion of slow looking is situated in four frameworks that focus on the centrality of careful observation of images. Descriptions of some of the pedagogy delivered during the study that featured students engaging in slow looking and visual analysis are followed by examples of students' written work that reveals their close observation of and analytical thinking about elements of visual art and design in picturebook artwork.

(Re)Animating Children's Aesthetic Experiences With/Through Literature: Critically Curating Picturebooks as Sociopolitical Art

“…Understanding picturebooks as sociopolitical art acknowledges the complexity of the picturebook format as multimodal text that calls for guidance and opportunities to engage in what Pantaleo (2020) describes as a slow looking and visual analysis of the picturebook. Making time and building a visual literacy toolkit that includes Visual Thinking Strategies (Cappello & Walker, 2016) with picturebooks can support the reader to both interpret and engage the illustrated portrayals within picturebooks through a racial, linguistic, or broader critical sociocultural lens (Gardner, 2017; Zapata et al, 2017).…”

Álbumes sin palabras y creatividad: propuesta didáctica para los grados de Educación Infantil y Primaria

“…Por otra parte, las investigaciones desde el ámbito clínico se centran en variables centradas en el desarrollo del lenguaje y con prácticas pautadas en el tiempo de creación de narrativas a partir de estos recursos. En este sentido, cada vez son más los investigadores que inciden en la necesidad de desmontar que la lectura de imágenes sea un ejercicio sencillo (Coderre, 2019) y recomiendan la lectura calmada para encontrar todas las claves encerradas en el soporte del álbum (Pantaleo, 2020).…”

“…Un ejemplo se encuentra en las seis experiencias lectoras desarrolladas por Bosch (2020) en las que pone énfasis en una propuesta basada en un enfoque dialógico, la participación del lector y con un tiempo que permita la indagación detallada de las obras La ausencia de texto no implica que este tipo de narrativas visuales impliquen una lectura menos exigente seleccionadas. Un enfoque que en el soporte del álbum permite el desarrollo del pensamiento crítico del alumnado (Ruiz-Guerrero et al, 2021) en la valoración estética del álbum y que precisa de una pedagogía específica para el análisis de sus diferentes componentes como el diseño o la composición (Pantaleo, 2020).…”

‘Getting Hands On with Other Creative Minds’: Establishing a Community of Practice around Primary Art and Design at the Art Museum

“…I really enjoyed having the chance to experiment and choose what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it.’ Another student stated how ‘I really enjoyed working as a group rather than on my own, which we don’t often get to do.’ Their comments reveal how empowering it can be for young artists and makers to be given the time and space to follow their own ideas and interests and to experiment with different materials and processes. With the current emphasis on reading and writing in UK primary schools, opportunities to explore visual modes of communication and expression in this way are both rare and vitally important (Arizpe & Styles 2016; Pantaleo 2019). Several teachers reflected on how the project had impacted on children who usually struggled with more ‘academic’ tasks by placing value on visual and creative responses.…”