GRAPHICACY AS A FORM OF COMMUNICATION

Abstract

ABSTRACT Children of today inhabit a multi-dimensional world and in order to communicate effectively in it they need the ability to utilise four forms of communication namely, oracy, literacy, numeracy and graphicacy. Communicating in graphic form requires an ability to both encode and decode spatial information using symbols which requires the utilisation and application of spatial perceptual skills and concepts. The draft Curriculum Framework for General and Further Education and Training identifies graphic literacy as one of the critical outcomes of the new South African curriculum. Spatial information about the environment is most frequently communicated in the graphic mode. Yet if graphicacy is to be recognised as an essential mode of communication and, as such, a vital element in education, then we need to seek ways of developing and introducing an explicit and critical pedagogy in our schools to foster the development of graphic and critical graphic literacy. But first, the skills and concepts integral to graphicacy need to be identified and understood. This article provides a framework for thinking about graphicacy as a form of communication in the General Education and Training (GET) band, the compulsory component of South African education (Grades 1–9).