Visualizing...Reading Comprehension Strategy

This week, we have been working on the strategy of visualizing what we are reading.  Visualizing is creating a "mind movie" using the details and descriptions of characters, settings, and events from the text.  For some students this strategy is simple to utilize, but others find that forming a visual representation from the reading is not easy to accomplish.  Because visualization allows students to comprehend various aspects of the text - sequence of events in a story, settings, character descriptions - I used the following activity to help students create a picture based on descriptions from the text.

The Emperor's New Clothes

I read the story aloud to the students, asking that they listened carefully and pictured the events from the story in the mind.  Because the story ends with the Emporer walking down the street in only a shirt and tights, I believed that each student could visualize at least one event from the story.

After reading the story aloud, I asked the students to close their eyes and visualize the story being "played" in their minds like a movie.  I asked them to think about what the setting looked like, how the characters were dressed and how they behaved, and the order that the events played out in the story.  I then allowed the students to finish watching their movies.  I then asked the students to select the most vivid scene from their movie - the portion of the story that had the most amount of details clearly played out in their minds.

Students were given a piece of paper.  I gave the students directions to begin with a pencil sketch of the scene making sure that the major details were drawn on the paper.  After the large details were sketched, students could then add to the illustration by adding additional details and/or color to the picture from their "mind movie."  Here are a few examples of the visualized scenes from the story.

We ended the lesson by sharing the illustrations in small groups.  After presenting, we joined as a whole class to discuss why visualization is a useful strategy for comprehending what is being read.  Students discussed in groups then verbally described their ideas.  The list included:  we could watch what happened in the story so we knew what happened in the beginning, middle, and the end of the story; we could visualize what the characters looked like; we could see where the story happened.                      

Overall, the lesson went well.  Students were engaged in the activity while also learning the value of using different reading comprehension strategies.  As you work with your student at home, ask him/her to visualize events, characters, and/or settings from what they are reading and orally describe them to you on occassion.