What is visualizing?

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What is visualizing?
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Visualizing is

• A reading strategy
• A way to help you understand what you read
• An important tool for reading fiction and
  nonfiction
• Making a picture in your mind

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How do you visualize?

• You use the words in the text to make a picture
  in your mind
• Its like seeing a movie in your mind
• Visualize this
• A green tractor

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Your mental image

• How was your mental image different from the one
  on the screen?
• We use our background knowledge to help us
  visualize what is in the text
• Different people bring different background
  knowledge, and so they visualize differently

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Try this

• The purple flowers bloomed, lifting their petals
  up to the sun. They were surrounded by the bright
  green lily pads that covered the surface of the
  pond.
• Can you picture this scene in your mind?

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Did your mental image look like this?

• The purple flowers bloomed, lifting their
  petals up to the sun. They were surrounded by the
  bright green lily pads that covered the surface
  of the pond.

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More practice!

• Make this picture in your mind
• A grassy path led into a garden of tall grasses,
  black-eyed susans, and purple coneflowers .

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Was your mental image like this?

• A grassy path led into a garden of tall grasses,
  black-eyed susans, and purple coneflowers .
• If your mental image was different, why? What did
  you add or change? How did your background
  knowledge affect your mental image?

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Now try this!

• The sleek, modern museum rose at the end of the
  parking lot. A tower that looked just like an
  airport control tower glistened in the center. To
  the right curved a silver, round building. A tree
  was to the left.

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How did you do?

• Which details were probably most important?
• Which were the easiest to visualize? Which were
  the hardest?

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The right picture?

• Because each person has unique background
  knowledge, everyone will visualize differently
• However, you need to make sure that you are using
  the text clues to visualize

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For example

• This picture would not match the details of the
  paragraph at all!
• The sleek, modern museum rose at the end of the
  parking lot. A tower that looked just like an
  airport control tower glistened in the center. To
  the right curved a silver, round building. A tree
  rose to the left.

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This is neat, but why?

• Why visualize?
• Here are three reasons
• Visualizing helps us to process text more
  actively. Because we have to use our prior
  knowledge to visualize, we are reading more
  carefully
• Visualizing can help you to figure out what is
  going on in the story
• Visualizing is fun!

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Using prior knowledge to visualize

• Visualizing is making a picture in your mind
  based on the text. But authors dont explain
  every single detail. Sometimes, you need to fill
  in with your background knowledge.

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What do you have to fill in with your background
knowledge?
Try visualizing the scene below

• Far in the distance, a group of ponies huddled in
  the surf, flicking away the biting insects with
  the swishing of their tails. Excited visitors
  watched them from the further up the beach,
  taking pictures and chatting.

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Here it is!

• Did you picture sand? Even though it wasnt
  mentioned in the text, your prior knowledge of
  the beach helped you to make an accurate mental
  picture.
• If youve been to Assateague, you were probably
  able to picture the ponies. If you havent, your
  mental picture was probably different.

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Pay attention to an authors clues!

• Sometimes what we read will not match our prior
  knowledge. Read this
• The fences and fields of Shelburne Farms
  stretched down the gentle slope toward the barn.

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But

• The fences and fields of Shelburne Farms
  stretched down the gentle slope toward the barn.
• But this was not a regular barn. Instead, it
  looked more like a palace. One round turret
  towered over the side wall.

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Here is the clue!

• The fences and fields of Shelburne Farms
  stretched down the gentle slope toward the barn.
• But this was not a regular barn. Instead, it
  looked more like a palace. One round turret
  towered over the side wall.

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What a difference!

• Notice that this barn does not look like the
  barns that you have in your prior knowledge. If
  you kept on thinking about a regular red barn,
  you would miss out on an important detail

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You can visualize whenever you read
Try sketching what you visualize based on the
dialogue below.

• What a day for a class trip! Ricky said.
• I know. I cant wait to get back in the boats
  and go canoeing some more, Ana replied.
• I just wish it werent so cold, Ricky sighed.

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What are some things that you drew in your
picture?

• Based on your prior knowledge and the clues in
  the text, what did you put in your picture?
• Canoe
• Lake
• Forest
• Students

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Heres one idea

• Does this look like the scene you pictured?
• What elements are similar? Different?

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What have we learned?

• Visualizing is an important reading strategy
• We need to use the authors clues and our own
  prior knowledge to build a mental image
• Everyone builds unique mental images
• Authors leave clues to let us know when our prior
  knowledge will not be a help