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‘Are we there yet?’ is a picture book created by Alison Lester. It follows a family of five in their journey around Australia from the perspective of the middle child, and only daughter, Grace. The text is rich in not only text, but also images that utilize a range of techniques e.g. maps, labels and cross-sections. The text effectively represents where the family are at any given time through the use of witty headings for each new town, and geographical representation through a map of Australia.

The text effectively engages students through its use of first person narrative, quirky events that occur, and variety of pictures. Not only this, the text provides ample information to students on Australia itself. The text names specific Australian cities and represents them on a map, directly providing a fun and engaging way for students to work towards achieving the focus outcome of the unit. In working towards the creation of their multi-modal text, the book provides extensive examples of exciting and unusual activities that take place all over Australia, thus helping to create interest in the potential content of the final product to be completed. By establishing an environment where reading is made enjoyable, students are given the opportunity to enjoy the learning process (Winch, Johnson, March, Ljungdahl, & Holliday, 2007, p.96).

The richness of the text means there are ample opportunities for many different aspects of literacy to be developed, depending on what focus area is being addressed. The complex relationship between how written text and visuals are placed on the page creates meaningful opportunities for students to discuss the effects of framing, colour, social distance, offer/demand, reading paths and vectors in their study of visual literacy. The written text is quite dense for young children, but provides opportunities to look at speech within a text, different features of grammar including nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions and tense as well as sentence or clause structure. Similarly, the text provides an excellent opportunity for the explicit teaching of how the meaning of the written text can often be reflected in the visual image. The prominence of adverbial phrases within the text is reflected in the complex nature of the pictures presented (Droga & Humphrey, 2003, Ch. 4). For early readers this complexity makes explicit teaching essential (Derewianka, 1998). Despite the text providing a brilliant opportunity to teach this skill it must also be made evident that it will not always be the most useful way to decode a text (Winch et al, 2007, p.28).

Reference List:

Derwianka, B. (1998). //A grammar companion: for primary teachers//. N.S.W: Primary English Teaching Association.

Droga, L., & Humphrey, S. (2003). //Grammar and meaning: an introduction for primary teachers//. N.S.W: Target Texts.

Winch, G., Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L & Holliday, M. (2007). //Literacy: reading, writing and children literature.// Oxford: University Press.

By Samantha Finnie