Comprehension Strategy: Visualization
When we began to talk to our second grade readers about the pictures they saw in their minds, many of them expressed that they didn’t see anything. This surprised us because during our interactive read alouds, we had modeled visualization on many occasions. In reflecting, we realized that we hadn’t taught visualization explicitly. We began by using Mem Fox’s book Tough Boris. We modeled how readers use details from the story to form a picture. Over the next couple of days, we went on to talk about how readers don’t only see what is written on the page. They also see other details (hence the sword in his hand because he is tough and speech bubble that imagines what a tough pirate might say.)
Introducing visualization?
Download these lesson plans:
Creating Mind Pictures Using Tough Boris by Mem Fox
Seeing With Our Senses: Extending Our Mind Pictures
Introducing visualization?
Download these lesson plans:
Creating Mind Pictures Using Tough Boris by Mem Fox
Seeing With Our Senses: Extending Our Mind Pictures
Comprehension Strategy: Visualization
As students worked on pictures of their own, we noticed that some of their pictures didn’t match the text on the page. Using Cynthia Rylant’s book, The Great Gracie Chase, we created two different pictures of the first page. On the top, the picture matches. On the bottom, the picture doesn’t match. We talked about how readers need to use the information from the text to support the pictures they form in their mind.
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Download this lesson:
Comprehension Strategy: Visualization morphs into Inferring
In the guided practice segment “Seeing with our Senses: Extending Our Mind Pictures” mini lesson, we asked students to consider what Mr. Slinger from Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse would say. When we sat and analyzed what the children had written and drawn, we realized that what we were ultimately asking and expecting from our students was inferential thinking. This is a higher level thinking skill and can be a difficult one to teach so we began to wonder how we could help students think more inferentially. We used black pen to represent what was actually written in the text and red pen to represent what we could infer about the characters’ thoughts and feelings. In this example, we used James Howe’s Pinky and Rex.
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Rereading to refine our pictures so that we can go deeper into the text
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Rereading to refine our pictures so that we can go deeper into the text
Comprehension Strategy: Inferring
Once we felt like our second graders were in a good place with creating mental images, we felt like they were ready to make the leap to inferential thinking but needed a lot more support. We created a shared reading experience using Marc Brown’s Arthur and the Poetry Contest. We wrote the first page of text onto a piece of chart paper and after we read it, the students talked about the pictures they saw in their mind. As they pointed out places that they pictured really well, we used highlighting tape to mark those spots. We then talked about what might be going on in the characters’ minds in these places that we pictured really well. The children wrote the feelings that they were able to imagine on post-its, like you see here. The post-its represent their inferential thinking and after this lesson, the students were able to “see” better what we mean when we talk about “what’s on the page” vs. “what’s in our head.”
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What’s on the page? What’s in our head?
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What’s on the page? What’s in our head?
