2. Reading charts and diagrams
Think about all the kinds of information texts that you read. Whether these are in the pages of textbooks, in advertising leaflets or on computer screens, they frequently include diagrams, charts, graphs, drawings, photographs or maps. To be successful as readers, you and your pupils need to understand how words, figures and visual images (such as photographs or drawings) work together to present information. Many writers on education now stress the importance of visual literacy. Learning how to read and respond to photographs and drawings is one part of becoming visually literate. Reading and responding to charts, graphs and diagrams is another. Bar and pie charts are some of the easier charts to understand and to make in order to summarise information.
Case Study 2: Making a bar chart to represent the number of pupil birthdays in each month of the year
Miss Maria Bako likes to make each pupil in her Primary 6 class of 60 pupils feel special. In her classroom she has a large sheet of paper with the month and day of pupils’ birthdays. On each pupil’s birthday, the class sings Happy Birthday to their classmate. One day a pupil commented that in some months they sing the birthday song much more often than others. Maria decided to use this comment to do some numeracy and some visual literacy work on bar charts.
First she wrote the names of the months on her chalkboard and then she asked pupils to tell her how many of them had birthdays in each month. She wrote the number next to the month (e.g. January 5; February 3, and so on).
She then explained how to make a simple bar chart and got the pupils in groups to make one for the class birthdays. She told them to begin with the month with most birthdays – September. In September, 12 pupils had their birthday.
The class talked about other information they could put into a bar chart and decided to explore how many pupils played different sports, how many supported each team in the national soccer league and how many pupils spoke the different languages used in their area.
Activity 2: Comprehending and making a pie chart
If your pupils responded well to the bar chart activity above you could move them on to a more complex type of chart, a pie chart (it is more complex because the maker has to calculate how big each slice of the pie is going to be).
Copy the pie chart in Resource 4: A pie chart.
Ask pupils to suggest why this is called a pie chart.
Write out the questions about the pie chart on your chalkboard and ask pupils to work in pairs to answer them.
Discuss the answers with the class.
Use your chalkboard to show pupils how to turn these answers into a paragraph about Kanamugire’s weekend. Ask pupils to draw the pie chart.
For homework, ask pupils to draw their own pie chart to show how they usually spend their time at weekends.
After checking the homework, ask pupils to exchange their chart with a partner and to write a paragraph about their partner’s weekend.
What have you learned from these activities?
What relevant activity could you do next? (Look at Resource 4 for some ideas.)
1. Reading for understanding
