"The Wizard of Oz was my first literary influence." Salman Rushdie

Films are accessible to all regardless of gender or academic ability. The teacher and class can tackle film as a team - and this includes children with special educational needs. Film provides a way in to the complexities of narrative that for some children may be less accessible if approached via the written word.

Children are already visually literate - able to understand images - before they start school, as the boom industry in videos for toddlers and pre-school children confirms. This knowledge can be used to develop oracy skills in the classroom by getting children to talk about a film still or clip - paying attention to the visual elements in the fore, middle and background of the shot. Watching carefully selected clips from films at the start of the literacy hour can lead to in-depth work and discussion on areas such as genre, narrative structure, the role of the narrator, characterisation, opening sequences, story settings and themes. The close attention which children are happy to give to film clips will then inform their own story writing, written work, evaluation and analysis.

The framework for teaching requires Year 5 and 6 teachers to compare a book to its film adaptation. Studying the film of the text in the classroom can help give children the tools they need to analyse a text. It is important, however, to make sure that the children are fully aware that the film is not the book but a version of it. They must understand that although the film started from the book, it is an interpretation of the words on the page. By comparing the book to the film, children will be able to see what changes the film maker made to the text when adapting it for the screen. Not only does this reinforce the structure of the original text, but it also provokes discussion on why those changes were made.

One way of exploring interpretation is to get children to storyboard a paragraph from the book, perhaps a passage that is particularly long-winded. This exercise forces children not only to read and interpret the words on the page, but also to read between the lines in order to get the right message across in their own work.

Some argue that teaching literacy is about developing an internalised visual landscape and that showing the film of the text hinders this development. The workshops and sessions that we have run have shown that children's creative writing improves after they have watched a film. It seems that visual stimulus gives children the impetus they need to work their own imaginations. Watching films and analysing them helps children to think visually and therefore to write visually.

Recent research carried out by David Parker for the British Film Institute and King's College, London has shown that children who were taught the written text in tandem with the moving image performed at one-and-a-half national curriculum levels higher than those motivated by the written text and teacher input alone.

Teacher Claudine Tomlin from Blean County Primary School, Kent, believes that using film with all age groups motivates children to pick up the book that inspired the film. But it also brings the book to life in such a way that reading it dry does not. She says: "I would honestly say that some of the best literacy hour sessions we've done have incorporated film."
 
 

Film Education has produced three study packs for use within the literacy hour: Film and Literacy Part 1: Book to Film Adaptations, Scriptwriting and Storyboarding (£16.50). Film and Literacy Part 2: Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales and Story Structure (£16.50). and Screening Stories (£9.99). Film Education also runs Inset on using film in the literacy hour. Contact film education on 020 7976 2291, email: postbox@filmeducation.org or visit www.filmeducation.org Further reading You've Read the Book, Now Make the Film: moving image media, print literacy and narrative, David Parker, The Centre for Research on Literacy and the Media, November 1998. Making Movies Matter report of the film education working group, 1999.

 

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