Multimodal Literacy Narratives

When I think about multimodal literacy that I encountered when growing up, the first thing that popped into my head was Dora the Explorer. At first, I shrugged off the idea and kept thinking about other literacy to write about then I realized that Dora is a perfect example.

I watched Dora at a very young age. Like most cartoons targeted towards toddlers it was enriched with lessons and devices to help broaden children’s minds. Young children have very short attention spans, so in order to keep them involved there need to be short segments, bright colors, and differing tones of sound.

Dora the Explorer episodes included text and numbers on screen to help with reading and writing, which falls into the linguistic category. There are words presented on screen multiple times throughout episodes and left on screen long enough for young children to be able to process them. Visually, there are numerous images throughout each video episode. There are bright colors and varying backgrounds while Dora and Boots stay constant throughout each scene to create a narrative that makes sense visually. The aural mode of literacy in Dora is the most important because throughout the episode Dora is talking at the viewer, she asks for responses and for the viewer to help her on her “adventures”. There is music throughout the episode and sing-a-longs that are very interactive and allow the child to memorize because they repeat in multiple episodes. Overall, Dora the Explorer is a great example of multimodal literacy and exemplifies that even a simple narrative can include several modes.