Logographic cues are visual images embedded with specific, widely understood meaning; they are pictures that represent certain words or concepts. These pictures are “designed to offer readers a high-utility message in a minimum amount of space.” (Beers, 129) Some languages, such as many East Asian languages, Such as the Chinese languages (Mandarin, Cantonese

Cantonese

Cantonese is a dialect spoken primarily in south China.Cantonese may also refer to:* Yue Chinese, the Chinese language that includes Cantonese* Cantonese cuisine, the cuisine of Guangdong province...

, Min, and Wu), and partially Korean

Korean language

Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

 and Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, are written in logographic scripts; single glyphs

Glyph

A glyph is an element of writing: an individual mark on a written medium that contributes to the meaning of what is written. A glyph is made up of one or more graphemes....

 represent whole morphemes

Morpheme

In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...

.

Examples of logographic cues include traffic signs, restroom signs, and pictorial flashcards. Unsurprisingly, logographic cues tend to be processed in the right brain hemisphere, the side more actively engaged with visuospatial input. Due to advances in technology and the media where logographic cues such as brand

Brand

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...

 logo

Logo

A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...

s abound, the ability and tendency to draw meaning from pictures has become more widespread and intuitive.

Utility to education

Logographic cues have also become increasingly useful in the domain of education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, specifically in the development of reading skills. Many sources of educational advice suggest the use of logographic cues to tap into visual learning

Visual learning

Visual learning is a teaching and learning style in which ideas, concepts, data and other information are associated with images and techniques...

 and intelligence, which usually takes a subordinate role to verbal education in schools; such sources include literacy expert Kylene Beers and a nationwide reading program, All America Reads.

Specific activities that utilize logographic cues include: students making symbols within the margins of print text and worksheets that provide a pictorial summary of the information given and picture flash cards that foster vocabulary development

Vocabulary development

Vocabulary development is the process whereby speakers of language enhance their working vocabularies with new words.During his/her infancy, a child builds a vocabulary by instinct, with little effort. Infants imitate words that they hear and then associate those words with objects and actions....

. (Kajder, 43) Teaching methods employing logographic cues can help to encourage and increase word recognition, text reformulation and information organization. The method also helps to tap into the sensory stimulation that encodes information into long-term memory

Long-term memory

Long-term memory is memory in which associations among items are stored, as part of the theory of a dual-store memory model. According to the theory, long term memory differs structurally and functionally from working memory or short-term memory, which ostensibly stores items for only around 20–30...

.

Criticisms

The use of this method has also received some criticism. In reference to the use of logographic cues to develop word recognition the International Journal of Disability, Development and Education writes that “the results of controlled studies show it to be ineffective and potentially detrimental to student learning.” (Sheehy, 47) The particular study documented in this journal suggested similar but modified alternatives such as Integrated Picture Cueing or the Handle Technique. The Integrated Picture Cueing (IPC) technique makes pictures out of the desired words, themselves, rather than symbolic pictorial depictions. The Handle Technique depicts the word with an extra serif

Serif

In typography, serifs are semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. A typeface with serifs is called a serif typeface . A typeface without serifs is called sans serif or sans-serif, from the French sans, meaning “without”...

(handle) that helps students encode the word and its meaning. Despite these findings and alternatives, logographic cues are widely used and encouraged in education.