Capacitación MAYO 2017: Part 1: Reading Is Seeing Part 2: Mindfulness Part 3: Writing
Capacitación MAYO 2017: Part 1: Reading Is Seeing Part 2: Mindfulness Part 3: Writing
Capacitación MAYO 2017: Part 1: Reading Is Seeing Part 2: Mindfulness Part 3: Writing
MAYO 2017
Part 1: Reading is seeing
Part 2: Mindfulness
Part 3: Writing
PART 1: READING IS
SEEING
Teaching students how to visualize in order to improve comprehension
Reading is seeing, the essence
• “Being able to create images, storyworlds, and mental models
while one reads is an essential element of reading comprehension,
engagement, and reflection. In fact, without visualization, students
cannot comprehend, and reading cannot be said to be reading.”
Jeffrey D. Wilhelm
Visualizations
• They help to establish the meaning of what you are reading.
• They help to put meaning into a form that summarizes it, so one can interpret it
and use it.
• When we read, meaning is created by the reader’s prior/background
knowledge and the information offered by the text.
• There is a direct relationship between a student’s experiential background and
both comprehension and imagery. The teacher must help students notice they
must activate this knowledge.
A red car…???
An example…
I walk around the house all day
Run through the yard
And help with play
When nighttime falls
I find my place and
Underneath the bed I’ll stay.
• In this case, the reader needs to activate conceptual knowledge of “shoes” + knowledge of the
genre (riddles) + procedures (appropriate strategies, and seeing complex implied
relationships). (P. 35)
Images and more images…
• In order to comprehend a text, the students must be provided with the appropriate experience before they
read: photos, movies, drama work, field trips, etc.
• Valid images combine personal background experience with direct and implied cues from a text.
This way, they create a visualization that is consistent with and respectful of all the details of a text.
Sequence teaching
1. Pre-assess: Identify students’ needs.
2. Modeling: I do/you watch (teacher models new strategy).
3. Sharing expertise: I do/you help (teacher uses strategy with the help from students).
4. Gradual release: Students work in small groups.
5. Assessing mastery: You do/I watch (students use the strategy individually).
Activities to visualize from words:
• “We cannot read what we cannot see. This means students need to be able to perceive words and build
visual meanings based on the ideas words communicate and suggest to us.”
• 1. Create mental images of concrete objects (p.47)
• 2. Create elaborate mental images of imagined concrete objects.
• 3. Envision familiar objects and settings from their own experiences. (p.48)
• 4. Add familiar actions and events, then relationships and settings.
• 5. Picture characters, settings, details and events while listening to a story read or told aloud.
• 6. Study illustrations and use them to create internal images. (p.49)
• 7. Create mental pictures independently.
How do we start?
• Move from “word imaging” to “single sentence imaging” to “sentence by sentence imaging” with oral
and then written language.
• Eventually, students will be able to handle “multiple-sentences imaging,” “whole paragraph imaging”
and “paragraph-by-paragraph imaging.”
• To help students refine their visualizations, use cards with prompts, like what, where, when, size, shape,
movement, mood…
• Examples: make a drawing that captures the central meaning of a word (love); act out the meaning of a
word (oppression); have students create a PPT presentation of the vocabulary of a story, with slides for
each new word; have students make a video summary of a story, play Pictionary with new vocabulary…
Read-alouds and think-alouds to model
imagery (I do/you watch)
• As you read aloud, be sure you also think aloud to model how you create images as you read. Use texts
rich in images.
• Identify the cues you use to begin creating a “story world” (for a narrative) or a “mental model” of the
information, concepts, or processes (for both narrative and informational text).
• Be sure to identify both the textual cues and the life experiences you used to build the images.
• Have students circle or underline on the text the visual cues you use to make your mental images, as you
read aloud. Then, students can circle their own.
• Example: p. 59+
Read-alouds and guided imagery (I
do/you help)
• As you read an informational text or a story, prompt students to create images.
• Ask students to create and describe their visualizations to the class, small groups, or partners.
• Provide assistance by asking for justifications based on text cues or by correcting misconceptions, if
students bring inconsistent images.
• Have students compare and contrast the images they have created, and compare the textual cues and life
experiences they used to create such images.
Simple prompting (You do/I help)
• Eventually, you can read aloud, or have students read aloud to each other, and simply prompt them to
circle visual cues and make pictures in their heads about story events or ideas.
• Advise them to “make a movie” in their minds as they read.
Visual think-alouds
• Have students sketch anything
they see, think, or feel as they go
through a think-aloud of a text.
• Ask them to sketch their
visualizations at particular points
in the story.
• Have them identify the visual cues
and words that helped them visualize
the scene they sketched.
More ideas
• Provide background knowledge before you start reading: visual aids, charts, maps, videos, etc.
• Create timelines and mind maps to help students identify key details, to summarize, to see patterns of
textual details, to discover complex implied relationships…
Reading ART! - VTS
• Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is an inquiry-based teaching strategy for all grade levels. You do not
need any special art training to use this strategy. The goal of VTS is not to teach the history of a work of
art but, rather, to encourage students to observe independently and to back up their comments with
evidence.