Classroom assessment and picture books — strategies for assessing how students interpret multimodal texts

Abstract

This article presents findings from a study investigating assessment strategies for primary students in their comprehension of visual and written text in picture books. The data is drawn from a larger pilot study in an urban setting of a large Australian city, engaging with 40 students across 4 grade stages from Foundation to Year 6. This article focuses on 7 students in the first year of school (Foundation). The study involved discussion, observation, questioning and drawing activities based on a common picture book for each grade. The assessment tasks, undertaken as individual interviews, were informed by functional semiotics and multimodal theory, and included a focus on visual metalanguage. The findings are discussed in terms of the effectiveness of the questions and assessment strategies, interpretations of children’s responses and the application for classroom use to support teachers in assessing their own students’ multimodal knowledge.