Year 5 Bundle: Comprehending Wordless Picture Books - Lesson Plan, Slides and Activities

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Teach visual literacy with this comprehensive teaching bundle, designed to explicitly teach how authors create meaning through the sequencing of images in visual texts. Combining a detailed lesson plan, comprehensive teacher slides and differentiated student activities, this curriculum-aligned resource provides everything you need to confidently teach visual literacy while lightening your planning load.

Built around the I Do, We Do, You Do model, this lesson sequence provides a scaffolded pathway from explicit teacher modelling to guided analysis and independent application. Using The Arrival by Shaun Tan (Lothian Books, 2006) as a mentor text, students investigate how the deliberate sequencing of images guides readers to infer meaning, interpret events and understand a narrative without written language.

Please note: This resource is designed to be used alongside The Arrival by Shaun Tan (Lothian Books, 2006). Teachers should have access to their own copy of the text and provide opportunities for students to view the illustrations directly during the lesson. Additional student copies are recommended where possible.

Through close examination of visual sequences, collaborative discussion and structured learning experiences, students analyse how visual elements such as composition, perspective, facial expressions, symbolism, framing and pacing work together across a sequence of images to communicate ideas, emotions and events. Students develop the confidence to justify their interpretations using visual evidence and apply a transferable analysis framework to new visual texts.

What's included in this teaching bundle?

Lesson Plan (PDF)

• A complete lesson sequence aligned to the Gradual Release of Responsibility framework
• Clear learning intentions and success criteria
• Explicit teaching focused on analysing how image sequencing creates meaning
• Teacher modelling using a structured visual analysis framework
• Guided discussion, formative check-ins and a reflective exit ticket

Teacher Slides (PowerPoint)

• Comprehensive, ready-to-teach presentation exploring how image sequencing creates meaning in visual texts
• Explicit teaching of how authors use the order and arrangement of images to communicate ideas and tell a story without written language
• High-quality modelled examples demonstrating how visual elements work together across a sequence
• Guided analysis of image sequences from The Arrival by Shaun Tan
• Explicit teaching of visual features including composition, perspective, facial expressions, symbolism, framing and pacing
• Structured discussion and analysis tasks requiring students to justify interpretations using visual evidence
• Embedded check-ins for understanding throughout the lesson

Differentiated Student Activities (PDF)

• Three differentiated, single-page activities with increasing levels of support and challenge
• Structured analysis frameworks guiding students to examine image sequencing, visual features and the meaning they create
• Opportunities to interpret character emotions, infer meaning and justify thinking using visual evidence
• Tasks requiring students to explain how visual choices influence the reader's understanding
• A progression from supported analysis to increasingly independent application

This complete teaching bundle supports students to move beyond describing illustrations, developing the analytical skills to explain how sequences of images communicate meaning and shape readers' interpretations. Ideal for upper primary classrooms, it provides a structured, engaging and curriculum-aligned approach to strengthening visual literacy, comprehension and analytical thinking across print, digital and multimodal texts.

Formats: PowerPoint and PDF

Aligned to Australian Curriculum: Explain how the sequence of images in print, digital and film texts has an effect on meaning (AC9E5LA07)

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