Reading Comprehension Strategy Series: How To Teach Visualizing in the Upper Elementary Classroom
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As adults, it’s hard to imagine NOT visualizing while we read, since it comes so naturally to a seasoned reader. But, for kids, they may not have been taught to focus their mind in that way. That’s where clear reading comprehension strategy instruction on visualizing, or picturing as some teacher refer to it as, comes into the…well, picture (pun intended)!
When we teach reading comprehension strategies specifically, including visualizing, we give our students a framework and a blueprint for how to THINK about what they are reading.
This framework leads to a deeper understanding of a text and helps students to interact with what they are reading. When students using reading strategies like visualizing (as we will discuss in great lengths in this post), they become active participants in their learning.
Pssst…Want a super engaging and interactive way to have students practice visualizing?
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what you need to know before teaching The Visualizing Reading Strategy:
One of the most common ways to teach students visualizing is to describe it as creating a picture or movie in our mind. We want students to constantly be adding to, changing, tweaking, and revising their mental images just like a movie is constantly evolving. In fictional texts, readers should visualize the settings, characters, and even the actions of those characters. In doing so, readers will have a better understanding of the story as a whole. In nonfiction texts, we want our readers to visualize the details about the topic, or the event in history in order to fully grasp the concept. Visualizing isn’t something that readers should be doing periodically, it’s something that should be ongoing for the entire length of the story.
Although the strategy is called “visualizing,” we should also encourage students to use all 5 of their senses, when appropriate, to really get the best mental image. For example, we don’t want students to just picture what a character looks like, but also what they sound like. If that character is eating their favorite food, we want students to imagine what that food smells and tastes like, too.
One of the best things about the visualizing strategy is that there is really no right or wrong answer. When readers visualize as they read, they rely on information from the text as well as their own prior knowledge to create mental images of what is happening in the story. Each reader may create unique images, as prior knowledge will differ between each reader.
Introducing the Visualizing strategy to students
The concept of visualizing is typically easy for students to understand. Introducing visualizing can be done through a simple drawing activity. Give students a specific thing to draw, but do not offer any specific details about what it should look like. For example, you may ask students to draw a clown, a beach scene, or a house. Allow students to draw the object or scene as they imagine it in their mind. Then, allow students to share their drawings with a partner. This will help illustrate the idea that we all visualize something different because our experiences are different. Someone who has been to a circus might have a different image than a student who has only seen clowns on TV or in books. Our experiences inform our mental images.
Modeling how to Visualize
Teaching reading strategies usually starts with modeling through a read-aloud. Choose a text to share and be sure to pre-read that book and prepare for places that you will stop to model the mental images that you are creating. You may want to have a whiteboard or chart paper available to actually draw, or have the drawings prepared ahead of time, to show your students when explaining your mental images. You can also draw your mental images on post-it notes and place them on the actual page in the story that sparked the mental image. Again, these images can be drawn in real time with students or prepared ahead of time to share with the students as you get to that part in the story. Be sure to showcase all 5 senses when describing your mental picture.
As students become familiarized with this strategy, invite them to create their own images using all 5 senses during a read-aloud. Have students share their drawings with a partner. Continue to remind students how our mental images vary because each of our experiences vary.
CHOOSE TEXTS THAT ASSIST IN VISUALIZING:
Of course we want students to be able to visualize regardless or what book they are reading. However, as students have their first experiences working this this strategy, choose books that lend themselves to visualizing will help students to have a quick win, and easily see this strategy in action.
Be sure to choose a book that is full of descriptive language and details. Books with more obvious examples will help set students up for success and will train their brains to really paint vivid images in their minds.
Here are some of my favorites: (affiliate links)
A Bad Case of Stripes by: David Shannon
Color Me a Rhyme by: Jane Yolen
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by: Judi Barrett
The Salamander Room by: Anne Mazer
Students will need ample time to practice this strategy with you in guided reading or strategy groups as well as with their independent books. In all settings, students will need simple visuals to help them remember to use this strategy often. For example, a bookmark highlighting the strategy will help remind students to visualize while independent reading, or while reading in small groups.
Likewise, a colorful classroom poster to refer to is also a friendly reminder to keep creating mental images while reading. Create a bulletin board set where you begin to highlight each reading strategy as you introduce them to your students. Students can refer to the bulletin board all year long!
Create on-going anchor charts of the mental images that you are creating during read-aloud modeling. These mental images, along with any written descriptions that you include with them will serve as great examples for students when creating their own mental images.
8 FREE Reading Strategy Bookmarks
Grab these FREE student bookmarks to help your students use reading comprehension strategies while reading.
There are a total of 8 bookmarks that explain reading strategy in kid-friendly language and is the perfect reference for students to use during independent or small-group reading time.
USE LINKtivity DIGITAL LEARNING GUIDES
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Teachers - if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times - LINKtivity® digital learning guides are WHERE.IT’S.AT!
They are especially handy for providing students with concrete examples in a variety of ways! And - they are PERFECT for teaching reading strategies like visualizing. Check out the video below to see a sneak-peek!
Here’s how it works:
In the visualizing LINKtivity, students first watch a short animated video clip that quickly catches their attention with fun doodles and images. The clip introduces what the strategy is and how readers use it.
From there they read alongside their “virtual reading buddy” to see the strategy applied to a text. While clicking through the digital book, each time the student comes across a thought bubble, they click on it and are brought to a new slide in the LINKtivity guide to see what their reading buddy is thinking!
Then, to take their learning to the next level, students read 3 additional high-interest reading passages to practice the strategy on their own. In a similar fashion as they did with their reading buddy, students click through the digital storybook and stop to visualizing along the way.
HAVE STUDENTS RECORD & SHARE THEIR MENTAL IMAGES:
Having students draw their mental images not only helps keep them accountable while reading, but it also helps them to to become better at applying the strateg. When drawing, encourage students to add details using all 5 of their senses. When explaining their images to someone else, students can rely on these 5 senses to help describe their thinking.
Encourage students to include written descriptions of their mental images. This will help them articulate their thinking and will help you to assess their application of the strategy.
Assessing Your Students on Visualizing
Assessment informs instruction. Keep notes of when you observe students using the strategy in whole-group, small-group, and individual settings. Here are some things to make note of when assessing a students’ ability to visualize:
How detailed are their descriptions are?
Do they use all 5 senses?
Do the details they describe accurately portray what the text says?
Do they visualize the most important parts of the story, or are their mental images not relevant?
Do they need you to prompt them to use the strategy, or are they using it without assistance?
When it comes time to see how a student is performing with this reading strategy, use a rubric to help give you an understanding of how they are doing. Providing this same rubric to students in kid-friendly language will also help students know how they are doing as well and areas where they need to improve.
Resources for Visualizing
Want to get your hands on the Visualizing LINKtivity®?
Join the LINKtivity® Learning Membership and start using this ready-to-go resource for visualizing that includes:
a teacher guide
a student LINKtivity
a student recording sheet
a student-friendly rubric
Get access to the Visualizing LINKtivity® PLUS all the other reading comprehension strategies inside of LINKtivity® Learning - an ALL-ACCESS pass to every single LINKtivity® created (INCLUDING all 7 reading strategy LINKtivities!)
Check out the other posts in this series
