Representing Vocabulary

Evaluating Pictures

(Consider Picture Representation From the Student's Perspective)

Words can be divided into:

• Picture Producers (car, cat, house)

Keep in mind that although these pictures are more concrete in nature, they may not necessarily look anything like the items the student has experienced. For example, whose car looks exactly like the one above?

• Non-picture Producers (hard, fun)

The majority of the words we use on a daily basis are not picture producers.

• Only 10% of the 330 most frequently used words by preschoolers are picture producers.


• Examples of non-picture producers: Yes, thank you, why, not, cold, I, you, do, more, no.


• Representing and understanding non-picture producers in graphics requires the use of metaphor, memory and a relatively wide experience base.
• No sentence is a picture producer

I want to show you something.

I want to say something else.