Teaching Resources
Center
Want to learn more or plan a lesson? Check out these links!
- Reading Comprehension Home
- Making Connections
- Fluency
- Determining Importance
- Inferring
- Metacognition
- Questioning
- Synthesizing
- Visualizing and Imagery
- Vocabulary and Word Identification
- Writing Across the Curriculum
Important UNCG Links
Visualizing and Imagery
- About Visualizing and Imagery
- Professional Books to help you develop lesson plans
- Children’s Books to use in lesson plans
- Some Helpful Web sites
- Some Useful Picture Books
Visualizing and Imagery:
Visualizing is when we create pictures in our mind based on the reading. Visualizing personalizes what we are reading and strengthens both thinking and understanding. Visualizing and inferring are the result of both connecting and questioning. When students start to make connections and ask questions they start to draw conclusions. The difference is that with inferring we are drawing conclusions with words. When we visualize we draw conclusions with images or pictures. One popular source for teaching visualization among students is wordless picture books. With wordless picture books students can make conclusions about the pictures and imagine new pictures. Visualizing is not limited to wordless picture books; it can also be used in both fiction and non-fiction. In non-fiction visualization is used with such items as graphs, charts, diagrams, illustration, and time lines. One thing to pay attention to when teaching is misconceptions. Students can read something and form the wrong picture in their head; when that happens, it hinders the students’ ability to understand the text (Harvey and Goudvis, 2000).
Reference:
Harvey, S. and Goudvis, A. (2000). Strategies That Work. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers
Quotes:
"Proficient readers spontaneously and purposely create mental images while and after they read. The images emerge from all five senses as well as the emotions and are anchored in a reader's prior knowledge."
1(Keene and Zimmerman, Mosaic of Thought as retrieved from the Education World Website, 2007).
Visualizing personalizes reading, keeps us engaged, and often prevents us from abandoning a book prematurely.
2(Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A., 2000, p. 97)
1Keene and Zimmerman (1997). Mosaic of Thought. Retrieved April 29, 2007 from http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/profdev/profdev094.shtml
2Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A. (2000). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension to enhance understanding. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.