Reading, Comprehension, and Art

While searching the internet for an idea for a new blog post I ran across an excellent newsletter dated September 1, 2007, from the University of Illinois at Chicago. STEP=UP, Special Teachers Exceptional Pupils = Urban Promise. This newsletter perfectly expresses the connection between "Add Your Own Art Children's Books" and reading comprehension.

"Teacher, and art therapist Ellen Holtzblatt enumerates three central ideas to consider when interweaving art into the curriculum to facilitate comprehension: students can use imagery, students can demonstrate and form meaning from the text(s), and build community through doing and sharing art. “I usually use a combination of reading, discussion, art and writing,” she explains.  “I start with text and then use a combination of the other 
modalities to deepen the students' experience.  Art bypasses verbal limitations and intellectual expectations.”



Art does more than illustrate learning, Ms. Holzblatt adds.  Art enhances learning.  The process of creating can be much more important than the product, and that process can be seen as a valid tool to understand students’ meaning-making. Students will feel safer using art in this capacity if they know that they are not being judged critically on aesthetics.



Expressions through art allow students to connect sensory images with multiple literacy skills and knowledge. Storyboarding is a terrific strategy for this, and can be used across subject matter. For example, students could create a series of images to reflect the plot of a story or the viewpoint of people during a certain time period."


You can read this entire article here 


By Jeannee` DeWolfe






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