color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One illustrative example of a curriculum practice connecting audio and oral meanings to reading and writing is using audiobooks alongside reader response journals. In this approach, students listen to a story via audiobook, paying attention to the narrator’s tone, intonation, and emphasis, which conveys meaning beyond the printed text (Rose, 2006). After listening, students engage in oral discussions about plot, character, and theme, before writing reflective journal entries that integrate both their auditory observations and textual analysis. This practice demonstrates key dimensions of multimodal literacies pedagogy: it blends multiple modes of meaning‑making (aural, oral, and written), emphasizes active engagement with texts across modalities, and encourages students to translate experiences from one mode (listening) into another (writing) (Kress, 2010). Additionally, it highlights the social and interpretive aspects of literacy, as oral discussion fosters shared understanding, while also supporting individual expression through written response, reinforcing the interconnectedness of multimodal communication in literacy learning (New London Group, 1996).

References

Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Routledge.

New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92.

Rose, D. (2006). More than a literacy narrative: Multimodal literacies in the classroom. National Council of Teachers of English.

Integrating Audio and Oral Practices in Literacy: A Multimodal Approach