In reading instruction, the relative permanence of the graphic display permits the teaching of "reading-to-do" and "reading-to-learn" processes.8 In reading-to-do, the permanence of the material permits the reader to consult it while performing a task. For instance, in filling-out a parts form in an automotive supply store, the part number can be looked-up, held in working memory just long enough to do the task of completing that part of the form, and it can then be forgotten. Because the parts catalog serves as a graphic "memory" device for storing information, the part number can be looked-up again when needed. There is no need for the clerk to memorize or otherwise learn the numbers of the parts in the store.

In reading-to-learn, much of what is taught as "study skills," or "learning strategies" reflects the property of the permanence of graphic displays and their ability to be studied at length and repeatedly read to extract the information collected in the display(s) and to relate it to prior knowledge. Strategies such as the variants of Robinson's SQ3R - Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review - , which give suggestions for information processing before reading, during reading, and after reading, were invented because the permanence of graphic displays permits the storage of knowledge and the need, then, for new learners to acquire the knowledge by reading.9

In Canada, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada has identified what it considers are the Essential Skills that are relevant for work, learning and life (www15.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/English/general/
Understanding_ES_e.asp). Two of nine Essential Skills are based on the prose and document scales of the IALS and ALL surveys. One is called Reading Text and a second is Document Use. In contrasting reading as it is done in schools versus workplaces, HRSDC states that, “A great deal of classroom reading focuses on “reading to learn.” For instance, emphasizing concepts such as finding the main idea and supporting ideas and restating them in one’s own words is “reading to learn.” On the other hand, a great deal of workplace reading is “reading to do,” with the reader taking various actions and assuming risks associated with error. That fact that the reader takes various actions as a result of reading materials changes the dynamics of reading considerably. That is why the person with hands-on experience to support the knowledge gained through reading is often the best equipped to carry out the work.”
(www15.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/awm/main/c_tf_read1_e.asp)

The permanence feature of graphic displays permits the storage of information over time or its transportation over space or both. This has the effect of removing the information display from its original setting or context. In turn, this makes it necessary to learn ways of making graphics displays so that they can be used out of context and of ways for comprehending such decontextualized displays. Much of what is taught about "conventionalized" devices such as topic sentences, greetings, salutations, narratives, exposition and so forth results from the capacity for decontextualization that permanent graphics displays exhibit, and the need, then, to have "recontextualizing" devices and modes of expression that literates can learn to help them process the information displays efficiently.

2. Spatiality. Unlike speech, graphic information displays can be arrayed in space. Signs can be placed on doors, over buildings, alongside highways, and so forth; pages of print with words layed out spatially to permit the recreation of a temporal flow of speech can be constructed; forms can be developed with "slots" containing labels ("Name;" "Address;" etc.) and myriad other graphic tools to accomplish various information transmission and processing tasks can be developed (labels, lists, bus schedules; flow charts; tables; schematics; transparencies; and so on).

In mathematics, spatial layout becomes especially important in the concept of "place value." In teaching reading, students may be taught to read graphs or figures, or to analyze text materials using such graphic devices as "semantic networks," outlines, tree structures, and other devices that depend for their effectiveness on the fact that the more of less permanent, graphic displays can be arrayed in space.