Teaching About Sound for Multimodal Literacy

The emergence of digital technologies has changed the design of texts and our literate practices so that we now interpret and construct texts which have written, visual, audio and spatial dimensions for making meaning, that is, multimodal texts. Prominent researchers (Kress 2000; The New London Group 2000) argued that literacy should be redefined as multiliteracies to acknowledge the multiplicity of communication channels and media, and the cultural and linguistic diversity that impact on textual meanings. Current definitions of multimodal literacy (Jewitt & Kress 2003) which acknowledge all modes (e.g. image, text, sound, movement) as significant for communication, accordingly require explicit teaching that provides all students with resources for the interpretation and construction of multimodal texts in classrooms. This study contributes to knowledge about the nature and function of the meaning-making resources of sound, which is required to realise multimodal literacy.