Visualizing

In second grade, we are starting the year working on specific reading comprehension strategies.  Our first focus strategy was visualization.  Visualizing strengthens reading comprehension skills as students gain a more thorough understanding of the text they are reading by consciously using the words to create mental images. As students gain more deliberate practice with this skill, the act of visualizing text becomes automatic. Students who visualize as they read not only have a richer reading experience but can recall what they have read for longer periods of time.

Mr. Palmer did two different activities with the second graders to help them practice visualization.  First the students read a short play of the fable The Lion and the Mouse.  There were no pictures on the script, so the students had to visualize the story.  It was obvious in the students' second reading of the play that they had created some mental images.  The students couldn't help themselves, when reading it the second time they used great expression and actions to "act out" what they had imagined in their heads.

The second visualization activity was to use the imagery from a Jack Prelutsky poem about a giant.  The poem had great descriptive language to describe the giant.  Mr. Palmer read the poem and the students drew the giant descriptor by descriptor.  Then, Mr. Palmer reread the whole poem and the second graders drew their mental image of the giant.  It was fun to look at all the different visualizations.