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Details in Images
The Y1 (six year old) children responded to the question, "What does this picture show?", by reciting lists of the details they could see in each picture.
Child A responded to the first picture, as follows:
"inaudible
and people ...
and houses ...
and trees ...
and birdies" |
To listen to the response, click on this link - birdies.wav (160 kb)
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| Child B said:
“soldiers …
horses …
houses …
waters(?) …
baddies”
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To listen to the response, click on this link - baddies.wav (345 kb)
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Child C saw “penguins … trees”
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Child A responded to the second image, as follows:
Grass ...
oranges and apples ...
grapes ...
(with help) aubergines ...
vegetables
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To listen to the response, click on this link - vegetables.wav (540 kb) |
| Child D saw only the scales in Image 2 and Child B could only identify "sausages". |
Compare these responses to your response to the question: "What does this picture show?".
Most adults presented with these images tend to give each picture a title or label which encompasses the content of the picture. Image 1 is often described as "A snow Scene" or "Hunters". Image 2 may be labelled as "A market stall". Unlike young children, adults try to take in the whole picture and give it a title.
This evidence suggests that young children may perceive images in a different way to adults - they take in the details of a picture, often without reference to the relevance or relative importance of the details to the whole image . Or perhaps, they articulate the process which adults carry out "in their heads", prior to giving a title. If so, then the children in this small-scale research did not go on to draw the conclusion (or picture title) that adults tend to.
Task
What impact might these findings have on the way we use visual images in our teaching of young (KS1) children? Make a brief note of any implications that you can identify.
The two images are:
Image 1: "Hunters in the Snow", a painting by Breughel
Image 2: A photograph of a stall-holder and his stall in a market in Kabul, Afghanistan
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