Fågel eller undulat? : Analys och tolkning av visuella uttryck i ett nutida läromedel för läs- och skrivlärande undervisning i årkurs 1

Sammanfattning: This research paper is based on a multimodal research approach with the objective to examine how the interaction or lack of interaction between text and image in a textbook affect the students’ conceptual understanding and how different types of images offer the students different ways of support in literacy education. Furthermore, the purpose of this research is to examine what kind of prerequisites the students need to be able to interpret the images, in order to deepen and facilitate their sense-making process in the early years of primary school. The paper is using two research methods. The first part of the study is based on a multimodal text analysis of 30 textbooks; from this analysis open interview questions were derived. The latter part of the study is based on interviews with a focus group containing six pupils. The obtained results show that the text and the image frequently interact through proximity to each other. Sometimes they even interact through color-coding or through divisions by frames. Many images interact with the written text by illustrating the written words; as for example the images included within the tasks. The results have proven that the image and the text have a dialogical exchange in the process of sense-making. In some contexts the different semiotic resources work against each other. From a holistic perspective both the image and the text contain potentially meaningful elements, which can in different ways, capture the recipient's attention in the textbooks.