The students at South Side are enjoying the holiday season. My office is next door
to the music room and daily I hear the Christmas songs being sung loud and clear.
Our hallways are filled with gingerbread people, candy canes, reindeer, hilarious looking elves and of course glitter everywhere! Its hard not to feel the excitement and anticipation of Christmas.
The Christmas season is a great time to teach the comprehension strategy , Visualization (Mental Images). Good readers must make a picture in their mind as they read. The students learn to use all five senses to make their mental images. The elementary students have been listening to music, poetry, interesting text and then drawing their images. Students learn that we all create different images based on our prior experiences (SCHEMA).
Christmas paintings and pictures are also a great activity to encourage students to think deeper about the image. One classroom used Norman Rockwell paintings to practice using all of the senses. What do you hear? Is the dog barking? What is the boy yelling? How does he feel? Where could they be going or where were they? Who might be upstairs?
The sledding picture below brings about lots of conversation and excitement. In Iowa we have lots of schema for snow, cold and sledding! Young readers need to practice and learn how to use these thinking strategies in many ways.
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