Visualization: Creating Mental Images for Engaging Reading Experience

1. Literacy Liaison Session 2007 Visualization Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

2. Sense & Remember… • As you explore the sea shell, what mental images come to mind? • Where are you? • What senses do you associate with the memory: smell, taste, touch, see, feel? • What emotions do you relive? Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

3. Visualization “When sensory images form in a student’s mind as s/he reads, it is an ongoing creative act. Pictures, smells, tastes, and feelings burst forth and the mind organizes them to help the story make sense. It is this ongoing creation of sensory images that keeps students hooked on reading.” (adapted from Zimmerman, Hutchins) Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

4. Defined…. • Visualizing shows students how to create mental images of what they are reading. • National Geographic Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

5. Defined… • During the reading, the reader is able to create images pertaining to the text in his or her head • Active Readers Assessment Resource for Young Adolescents Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

6. Defined… • Allows readers to create mental images from words in the text • Enhances meaning with mental imagery • Links past experience to the words and ideas in the story • Enables readers to place themselves in the story • Strengthens a reader’s relationship to the text • Stimulates imaginative thinking • Heightens engagement with text • Brings joy to reading • Stephanie Harvey & Anne Goudvis, Strategies That Work Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

7. Without visualization… • If kids fail to create sensory images, they suffer a type of “sensory deprivation.” • “It’s like walking into a theater and sitting in a seat. But nothing comes up on the screen.” (Zimmerman, Hutchins) Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

8. Listen and Respond… • What images come to mind as you listen to this Moussorgsky piece? • Sketch a picture. • Use word pictures to describe the smells, sounds, sights, tastes, feelings. • Describe what actions you see to the group. (If you are brave!) • Dramatize the actions. Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

9. Proficient Readers. . . • Spontaneously and purposefully create mental images while and after they read. • Allow the images and emotions to emerge from all five senses. These are anchored in a reader’s prior knowledge. Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

10. Proficient Readers.. . • Use images to draw conclusions • Create distinct and unique interpretation of the text • Recall details significant to the text • Adapt their images as they continue to read by incorporating new information and new interpretations (synthesizing) Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

11. Proficient Readers. . . • Understand and articulate how creating images enhances their comprehension. • Adapt their images in response to the shared images of other readers. Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

12. Teaching "Visualization" Techniques Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

13. Technique #1 Create Sensory Experiences Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

14. Fill in the Gaps So many of our students DO NOT have an adequate sensory background of experience. They have not been exposed to many varieties of smells, tastes, or touching, nor do they own accompanying words to describe them. Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

15. What Can We Do? • Have students name words that describe the five senses. • Bring in fragrances, textures, colors, tastes, sounds. • Have students identify the samples. • Discuss the qualities of each object. • Provide the vocabulary. Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

16. Teaching a Sense:Touch • Place these objects in different paper bags. Have students identify objects by feel only. • Examples: silk, pinecone, fur, sandpaper, rubber ball, cooked noodles, screwdriver • Have students place objects in order, for instance, from smoothest to roughest. • Provide words for the adjectives of touch: smooth, squishy, slimy, metallic, scratchy, bumpy Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

17. For students who struggle with Visualization…. 1. Present students with different objects. 2. Ask students to look at the object carefully and feel its texture. Smell it. Listen to it. (Some objects may have a sound.) 3. Put the object away. Have students close their eyes and see the details in their minds. 4. Have students draw a picture of the object or describe it in writing. Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

18. Technique #2 Think-Alouds Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

19. You Try It! “The barn was very large. It was very old. It smelled of hay… It smelled of the perspiration of tired horses and the wonderful sweet breath of patient cows… It smelled of grain and of harness dressing... It was full of all sorts of things you find in barns: ladders, grindstones, pitch forks... lawn mowers, snow shovels, ax handles, milk pails, water buckets, empty grain sacks, and nasty rat traps...” E.B. White Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

20. Model Your Thoughts, Then Ask… • What words in the text helped you form that picture? • How did your background knowledge add to the details of this mental picture? • How have the sensory images changed as you read the story? • Does creating images help you remember the story? • Can you explain to the group how seeing the facts in your mind helps you decide what information is the most important to remember? Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

21. Organize Responses Senses • Make a sensory wheel. Divide a circle into six wedges and then complete it with the following: • I hear, I feel, I taste, I smell, I touch... (Emotionally, I feel) • Give strips of paper with symbols of the senses. Students read with partner to find sections of text where they could visualize using one of the senses. Hear Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

22. Details Will Start Sketchy • Press students for greater elaboration. • If they see a car: • What color is the car? • What type is it? • How many doors does it have? • Does the top roll down? • What sound is the horn? • What do the seats smell like? • What coverings do the seats have? Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

23. Technique #3 Create Symbolic Representations Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

24. To Increase Vocabulary Knowledge • Ask students to think of a way they could remember the meaning: principal- “the principal is your ‘pal’” • Ask students to make a graphic representation that would connect with their lives personally and facilitate memory of the word. • Ask students to “act out” the word’s meaning. Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

25. To “Sense” Math Word Problems Make a visual representation of the problem. Scott, a student at NSCC needs to walk from his dorm room in Davis Hall to his math class in Forester Hall. Normally, he walks 300 meters east and 400 meters north along the sidewalks, but today he is running late. He decides to take a shortcut through the courtyard. How many meters long is Scott’s shortcut? Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

26. To Increase Science Knowledge-Make Models Pictures, diagrams, computer images, other representation of complex objects or processes help students understand things they can’t observe directly. For example: Make a model of an atom, DNA, a cell’s structure, the solar system. Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

27. To Make History Come Alive • Helps students engage with their Social Studies text through connecting with figures and events in history • Visualizing the day to day and significant events in the lives of historical figures helps students monitor their comprehension and remain engaged with the material Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

28. Graphic Organizers Fish Bone Cause and Effect Character Sketch Compare and Contrast Venn G.O Labeled Flow Chart Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

29. Technique #4 Play with Poetry Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9

30. Poems are Sensory Treasure Chests The Woman’s 400 Meters (L. Morrison) Skittish, they flex knees, drum heels and shiver at the starting line waiting the gun to pour them over the stretch like a breaking wave. Bang! They’re off careening down the lanes, each chased by her own bright tiger. Literacy Liaison Visualization Session 7-9