Developed in partnership with Education Services Australia

The Australian Curriculum sets the goal for what all students should learn as they progress through their school life. Skills in the Year 3-4 curriculum include:

• understanding how the choices we make when composing images can have different effects on a viewer
• making choices about which words best fit an image
• creating moving picture stories by choosing and ordering different parts of a photograph.

It’s easy to help your child practise these skills as part of everyday life – just use these simple ideas.

Get creative

Our world is becoming more and more visual, so at school your child will be learning about composing and using visual images as well as written texts. With access to a smart phone, they can also have great fun taking their own photos and videos and editing them at home. If you aren’t familiar with using this technology yourself, ask your child to show you what they can do. Most kids love teaching things to adults, and it’s a great confidence booster!

When you are looking at photos or videos with your child, you can develop their visual literacy skills by talking about:

• the effect of camera techniques such as close-ups and different angles
• what facial expressions, body language, and the relative size and position of characters tell us
• what the photographer or director wants us to feel when we look at a particular shot.

You might even like to commission your child to create a photo display or video for a special occasion. Imagine how impressed grandma would be if your child made her a video or photo collage for Christmas!

Go online

For online reinforcement, The shots tell the story. and Lights, smartphone, action! will give your child practice at:

• creating a video
• using different camera techniques to make the story more interesting.

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