Visual+Dictionaries

Visual dictionaries: pictures + text = learning.Full Text Available / bibliographical essay By: Safford, Barbara Ripp. School Library Monthly, April 2002, Vol. 18 Issue 8, p30-31

AUTHOR:	Barbara Ripp Safford TITLE:	Visual Dictionaries: Pictures + Text = Learning SOURCE:	School Library Media Activities Monthly 18 no8 30-1 Ap 2002 COPYRIGHT:	The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. The current debate in my reference class is about the nature and quality of visual dictionaries and other reference sources heavily dependent upon graphics. While admitting the importance of visual learning tools for our visually bombarded children, there is a group in class that maintains that graphics tend to be attracting, but that the information associated with the sources is shallow indeed. Of course the focus of debate is the Dorling Kindersley publishing house which produces volume after volume of "Visual Dictionaries," "Eyewitness Visual Dictionaries," and "Ultimate Visual Dictionaries." These cover every subject from Star Wars to Baseball to Animals to The Civil War. There are other companies that produce visual reference tools as well, such as Firefly, Macmillan, Scholastic, and Facts on File. For this article, I am using a limited definition for these references sources -- they must have graphics with parts labeled in text for identification purposes. This omits some lovely and outstanding reference sources, some with "visual" in the title, that are only lavishly illustrated. The appeal of the visual dictionary is not in question; both children and adults find them engrossing and browsable. They share the same addictiveness as Where's Waldo. But are they useful reference tools? What criteria determine whether they are successful? How do they fit in an information literacy program? As browsing volumes, these sources satisfy the natural curiosity in those of us who like to know the names of things. Since the objects identified include mechanical, biological, musical, historical, recreational, and personal categories, there is something for every student's interest. Many of the same categories apply to school curriculum areas so that teachers and library media specialists can adapt and apply the entries and make relevant assignments by using them. Once students become adept at using the dictionaries, they can go on to find objects not illustrated and to create their own dictionaries with graphics and text. A labeled illustration can become an automatic part of any student project, whether written or media-generated. The combination of pictures and their word analysis appeals to a combination of learning styles. Perhaps the primary/original purpose of any visual dictionary is as a ready-reference source. What is that hard piece on the end of a shoelace? What do you call the sliding divider in a desk drawer? What are the parts of a symphony orchestra and how are they arranged on the stage? What is the basketball referee's hand signal for charging? What does a suspension bridge look like? Or a battleship? Visual dictionaries are good at answering these sorts of questions, and the excellent ones have hierarchical tables of contents and both general and thematic indexes that make it possible to locate the term or the illustration. Another use for visual dictionaries is as vocabulary builders. These dictionaries present delightful ways for students to build working vocabularies from all of the scientific, sports, arts, and recreational categories. They can assist in all the traditional specific assignments: label the internal organs of a reptile, the major bones of the human skeleton, the parts of a microscope, or the physical characteristics of a volcano. They also can assist as general vocabulary-builders: pick a machine, an insect, or a violin, and identify its parts. They can help students make judgments: compare machines, animals, playing fields, or bridges, and demonstrate similarities and differences. Children who may be bored with standard spelling/vocabulary lists may be more motivated if they are allowed to build some of their own lists. And tying the vocabulary word to a picture is a demonstrated memory enhancement. These books can be a wonderful tool for students learning a new language. American students studying foreign languages can make use of the pictorial English-foreign language dictionaries. Resources such as the Oxford-Duden picture dictionaries should be in every school with foreign language instruction. Visual dictionaries also are helpful for English as a Second Language or any bilingual instruction. The very easy ones (Facts on File Junior or the Scholastic Visual Dictionary) would be great for vocabulary building and development. The links with illustrations put the printed words in context and provide structure for speech practice with an English-speaking partner. Facts on File also publishes the English/French Visual Dictionary with identifying text in both languages. Macmillan has a multilingual edition of its Visual Dictionary with text in French, Spanish, and German, as well as English. It was the use of the visual dictionaries to support foreign language instruction that brought forth most of the negative reactions from my students. Although the concerns they voiced would apply to any other use as well, students became especially critical when they perceived the dictionaries used by non-native speakers. Their criticisms focused on clarity. They found pages cluttered with illustrations to the point of distraction, and sources having text labels with lines that got lost on the way to the pictures that they were supposed to identify particularly annoying -- and confusing for young readers. In any of these books, the clear identification of text with appropriate pictures is essential and this is normally achieved by tying text and illustration together with a line. In simple drawings in monochrome colors with black lines, this is usually a clear-cut process, although the more complex the drawing, the more the line is likely to get lost. In some of the full-color dictionaries (and here is where DK sometimes can be faulted, as in the DK Children's Visual Dictionary), the line gets completely lost, to the extent that it is misleading or impossible to determine which item or part of the item is being identified. Although not so flashy as DK productions, the older Facts on File Junior Visual Dictionary with its matte finished, clear-cut muted colors, combined with black text and lines, does an exemplary job of clear identification. The general dictionaries cannot have the depth of the special subject visual dictionaries and there are some excellent ones. Firefly's Sports: The Complete Visual Reference goes beyond the basic dictionary format to include additional textual information for the 120 sports it covers, while using the visual dictionary technique of naming parts of playing fields, clothing, and equipment. This would be a valuable addition to a reference collection before the Olympic Games, as it has comprehensive coverage of winter sports, track, and other summer games. One of my long-time favorites is a DK Eyewitness Visual Dictionary that shows what good sources this publisher can produce when restraint is used in the number of illustrations on a page and when the connecting lines are carefully drawn, even in multi-color pictures. The Visual Dictionary of the Skeleton includes plant skeletons as well as shells and exoskeletons, and bird, fish, reptile, amphibian, and mammal skeletons. There is an incredible fold-out human skeleton. Extended sections on skulls, ribcages, and hands and feet complete the contents. Well-designed visual dictionaries do have a place in reference collections and can play a significant role in literacy development as well as being useful for other kinds of instruction. Teachers need to know that these resources exist and that such sources can motivate students who are visual learners or whose interests lie outside curriculum areas. ESL and other teachers also may appreciate a circulating classroom set. Many of these titles need to be in both reference and circulating collections. Once students discover visual dictionaries, they will want time to explore them both in and out of the library media center. ADDED MATERIAL Barbara Ripp Safford is Associate Professor at the School Library Media Studies, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls. She has been a middle school and elementary school library media specialist in Maryland, a high school media specialist in Ohio, and a public library director in Pennsylvania.