Literacy as Multimodal Meaning Making

(Written with M. Lawson)

Multimodality speaks to the varying ways of representing, communicating and interpreting messages transmitted between people’s interactions with one another, with symbols, with objects and other materials that provoke meaning (Kress, 2003).  Given that people come from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, this has a significant influence in how a person or groups of people represent and communicate how they make meaning of their world (Kress, 2003, Martello, 2007; Seigel, 2006).  Kress (2003) asserts that representation and communication of ideas are no longer limited to what is written and read or spoken and heard.  It is no longer limited to lingual practices that only address two of our senses, sight and hearing; rather, it can be expressed in multimodal ways that trigger other parts of our senses and enrich our overall interpretation of things and situations (Kress, 2003).  Literacy is a way to represent and communicate an array of meanings and ideas that people have but it can also be described as being multimodal in its own right.  Children naturally experience literacy in a multimodal way therefore, within the context of educating and working with children, multimodal literacy is important to acknowledge, analyse, and put into practice.


Kress (as cited in Martello, 2007) defines multimodal literacy as a variety of ways in which children explore and practice literacy.  The multimodal practice involved in literacy learning is also significantly influenced by children’s diverse social and cultural traditions and practices.  As a result, children’s literacy practices can range from being linguistic, visual, oral and auditory, gestural and physical (actions or touch, ex. braille), or a combination of some or all (Martello, 2007, Seigel, 2006).  In the classrooms/centres, educators can support children’s literacy development by learning about the child and their literacy experiences at home and even within the community.  As educators familiarize themselves with the children’s families and cultural backgrounds and practices, they can incorporate such practices in the classroom/centres in a more natural and ethical way.  However, children are still taught with the expectation of mastering literacy by imposing letter sounding and writing drills or rote memorizations, following what Seigel (2006) describes as a “narrow and regressive vision of literacy learning in school[s]” (p. 65), which sets children to fail academically and be labeled “at risk” or worse, “illiterate”.  These are the children who may not connect and are unable to thrive in these conventional literacy practices because of its limiting ways and because it ignores other possible ways that they do use to learn and engage with literacy.  Failure to recognize children’s multimodal literacy learning and ignoring literacy experiences at home is a disservice to children and their overall development.    


Educators can “have a positive impact on the emerging literacies of every child by achieving continuity between home and educational literacy practices” (Martello, 2007, p. 89).  Multimodal literacy practices has a potential to meet every child’s needs, especially as they approach and learn to read, write, and generally express themselves through varying modes and mediums.  If a child has difficulties expressing her/himself through spoken language, perhaps the visual or gestural mode will allow him to do so.  “Embracing and capitalizing on a wide range of home and community literacy practices extends the learning possibilities for all children” (Martello, 2007, p. 101).  The important task is to closely observe, be well informed of, and foster and support the child’s “literacy strengths” (Evans, 2001) so that s/he has a positive and meaningful experience with literacy learning.  It is equally important that educators critically reflect on their own history with literacy practices to be able to recognize the uniqueness of literacy learning and therefore, enhance the way they engage in literacy practices with children. 


Through our inquiry we reflected on our experiences in engaging with multimodal literacy and in supporting its varying ways with children.  We questioned how our own social and cultural backgrounds influenced how we approached and encountered literacy as young children and whether we were encouraged to freely experience literacy in all of the ways we wanted to.  We wondered how such experiences could have influenced how we approach literacy teaching and learning with the children we work with now.  Finally, we questioned how we would promote multimodal literacy practices and also asked ourselves whether we use it more naturally or as a response to children who are not responding to particular literacy activity.  Our experiences have been of both but we believe that this was a part of the process of being attuned to children’s multiple ways of learning and making meaning of their world.  We surmised that we ourselves represented, communicated and interpreted in such a myriad of ways that it is wrong to restrict oneself, and therefore to restrict others – children – to make meaning within limiting or simplified terms.

Some questions to consider:

~What is (or has been) your experience with multimodal literacy?

~How do or did your social (familial and community connections) and cultural backgrounds influence how you experience(d) multimodal literacy?

~How often do you actually engage in multimodal literacy?

~Do you use it naturally (2nd nature to vary the ways to introduce literacy experience to children) or do we use it as a response to children who are not as responsive to particular literacy activity?

~How would you try to overcome parents or other colleagues' resistance to multimodal literacy practices?

~some examples of multimodal literacy practices...

References:

Evans, K.  (2001).  Holding on to many threads: Emergent literacy in a classroom of Iu Mien children.  In E. Jones, K. Evans & K. S. Rencken (Eds.), The lively kindergarten: Emergent curriculum in action (pp. 59-74).  Washington, DC: NAEYC. 

Kress, G.  (2003).  Multimodality.  In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: literacy learning and the design of social futures (pp. 182-202).  New York, NY: Routledge

Martello, J.  (2007).  Many roads through many modes: becoming literate in childhood.  In L. Makin, C. Jones Diaz, & C. McLachlan (Eds.), Literacies in childhood: Changing views, challenging practice (2^nd ed. pp. 89-103). Marrickville, NSW: Maclennan & Petty – Elsevier.

Seigel, M.  (2006).  Rereading the signs: Multimodal transformations in the field of literacy education.  Language Arts, 84(1), 65-77.