Visualization- Mental Images

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.

Its a fun time of year to see Christmas through a child’s eyes!  Happy Reading-Mrs. Speake

Schema

Schema is the next comprehension strategy our elementary students are learning.  Most readers and teachers know schema as "background knowledge".  Schema is everything in our brains that we have experienced.  All the things I've done, all the places I've been and all the books I've read.  Good readers always use their schema before reading, during reading and after reading.

At South Side we want our readers to know how to use their schema and how to make meaningful connections.  Connections may be text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-world.  With a read aloud, teachers will model how to use schema and make meaningful connections while reading.  Next readers will work with their teacher to make connections and finally they will practice making connections during their independent reading time with their "just right" books.

Some of my favorite text to use for modeling connections are from the author Kevin Henkes.  His stories have characters that children relate to easily and the text is full of rich and engaging vocabulary.  To share a few of his characters..... Chrysanthemum is teased about her long flower name, Lilly is quite a unique individual and takes her purse to school and learns a valuable lesson when she gets in trouble, Wendell is a wild child that "wears" most of his friends out and Chester is best friends with Wilson.  They are "two peas in a pod" doing everything together until Lily moves into the neighborhood.

These books can be read over and over pulling many valuable lessons, rich vocabulary and meaningful connections that help our readers become successful with using comprehension strategies independently.

Reading should always be meaningful and engaging.  Our elementary students (1-5 grades) will hopefully tell you, "making connections and using our schema helps us to better understand the story" !
Happy Reading- Mrs. Speake