Reading Multimodal Texts in the 21st Century

Discussions concerning which literacy skills will be required of students in the 21st century have appeared in numerous educational publications recently and have been greeted with mixed reactions (Bellanca & Brandt, 2010; Trilling & Fadel, 2009). It has been proposed that the skills necessary to be a literate citizen in the new millennium have expanded from simply being able to read and write printed text to being able to consume and produce a variety of texts across traditional and new technologies and working in digital and mobile environments (Kress, 2010; Lankshear & Knobel, 2006; Luke, 1995). What needs to be emphasized in these discussions are the challenges associated with the visual and multimodal aspects of the texts readers will encounter. As the texts readers encounter grow in complexity, shifting from monomodal to multimodal, and are distributed in digital forms in addition to traditional print-based forms, the requisite skills readers will draw upon needs to expand to handle the demands of these new texts (Serafini, 2010). The texts readers encounter in and out of school are usually accompanied by visual images and design elements in addition to printed text. Readers interact with print-based texts that contain multimodal elements, for example, picturebooks, informational texts, magazines and newspapers, as well as digitally based texts that contain hyperlinks, video images, music, sound effects, and graphic designs. Paul Duncum (2004) stated, “... there is no avoiding the multimodal nature of dominant and emerging cultural sites” (p. 259). Images and texts are being combined in unique ways, and readers in the new millennium will need new skills and strategies for constructing meaning in transaction with these multimodal texts as they are encountered both in and out of school settings (Serafini, 2009b). While print-based reading materials in the form of basal readers, children’s picturebooks and novels, writer’s notebooks, and commercial worksheets have dominated classroom reading instruction (Allington & Walmsley, 1995), the texts readers encounter As the world told becomes the world shown, the texts of the 21st century will require teachers to adopt new skills, strategies, and pedagogical frameworks to support students’ transactions with multimodal texts. This shift from a focus on monomodal, print-based texts to a focus on the skills necessary for producing and consuming multimodal texts requires readers to navigate, design, interpret, and analyze texts in more complex and interactive ways. As the texts readers encounter grow in complexity, shifting from monomodal structures to multimodal ensembles, and are distributed in digital forms in addition to traditional print-based texts, the requisite skills readers draw upon will need to expand to handle the demands of these new texts and experiences.