Artistic Adventure

How Appreciating Art Can Promote Literacy (Installment 1)

What is an Artistic Adventure? It's an outing devoted to appreciating art in its many forms. Whether you visit a museum, walk through a sculpture garden, or look at the architecture in your hometown, you prepare children to tap into abilities they'll need later in life. By encouraging children to analyze what they see, you help then develop their imagination. , critical thinking skills, and powers of observation. You also broaden their horizons and can inspire them to create masterpieces of their own. And if that's not enough, Artistic Adventures even give you an opportunity to build children's literacy skills.

The next time you take children on an Artistic Adventure, try "reading" the works of art together. You'll help children develop reading-related skills as they learn about the artist and the people, places, and time period depicted in the artwork.

*Talk descriptively about what the artist created.

*Discuss the people, places, and things you see in the work of art.

*Ask children to tell you what is happening or what is depicted in the work of art.

*Learn about the artist and ask children to imagine what the artist was thinking when he or she created the work of art.

*Prompt children to discuss what they like or dislike about what they've seen.

*Ask children to talk about how the work of art makes them feel or of what it reminds them.

*Encourage children to bring a notebook and jot down their observations.

*Have children write a response to a particularly memoriable work of art when they get home.

*Encourage children to check out books from the library on the artist or technique in which they demonstrated the most interest.

Like any school trip or family outing, Artistic Adventures can engage children in part of the world around them about which they may have known little or nothing. These experience can inspire them to read about what they saw so they can learn more.

The above tips were provided by the national non-profit Reading is Fundamental and are not the works or property of Peta-Gay Lewis.