Elaine

Visualizing is a strategy for in which active readers create visual images based on the words they read in the text. These visual pictures which can be put down on paper or simply discussed can enhance a student’s understanding of what they are reading. By discussing with other students what they visualize, this can add to the “picture” that a student has drawn in their mind from what they are reading.

The strategy of visualizing should be modeled to students so that they can think about what they see when they hear the words and understand how to tie it back to other thoughts or ideas that they have some knowledge about.

An example of modeling this strategy from the Reading A to Z book, Fantastic Flying Machines follows.

“Whenever I read a book, I always pause after a few pages to create a picture in my mind of the information that I have read. This helps me organize the important information and understand the ideas in the book. When the author asks us to imagine flying across the sky, I imagine being able to see earth from far above with the wind blowing in my hair and the sun warming my back. I imagine that I can see people and trees from far up and they look very tiny because I am so high up in the sky.”

Students can visualize in their mind and describe it with words or they can do so by drawing a picture.

Web sites [] Guided Comprehension: Visualizing Using the Sketch-to-Stretch Strategy

[] These are activities to help support your students as they learn to visualize while reading (Artistic response, Gallery Images, Guided imagery, Story wheel, Think aloud.

[] Visualizing lessons.

[] Primary lesson plan for the book The Vegetables Go to Bed.

Articles [] Strategies For Visualizing Effective Instruction

[] Article for teachers about visualization.

Video [] Lindamood-Bell.com instruction of visualizing and verbalizing. [delete]

Graphic Organizers are a visual- spatial way to organize information to help students understand the concepts being presented. They can be used in all subjects but are especially helpful with writing for helping students organize their ideas on paper and for reading comprehension for writing down pieces of information that they have learned from reading and being able to expand that information to learn even more. An example of this would be this chain of events organizer. Key questions: What is the first step in the procedure or initiating event? What are the next stages or steps? How does one event lead to one another? What is the final outcome?

Students with special needs often have a difficult time keeping ideas in their heads. When they write them down and see them visually on the paper, it helps them to understand the meaning of what they are learning and to retain this knowledge. Here are some web sites with graphic organizers. [] This collection of ready-to-use free graphic organizers will help children classify ideas and communicate more effectively.

[] Graphic Organizers Venn Diagrams, Concept Maps, Writing, Character, Reading

[] Forty graphic organizers to help your students children classify ideas and communicate more effectively.

[] Free graphic organizers.

[] This site has ready-to-print graphic organizers for many purposes. There are student organizers as well as those for organizing writing, stories and content information [delete]

Activating Prior Knowledge (Pre-teaching) is the reading strategy in which students bring their own experiences and knowledge to what they are about to read. Research shows that readers pay more attention when they can relate to the text. They will comprehend information better when they think about the connections they make between the text, their lives and their world.

Pre-teaching can be used at the beginning of the school year to teach students about the rules and expectations of the class. It is very effective when looking at vocabulary to be presented in any subject area that students will be reading. It can be used in teaching reading strategies so that students can better comprehend the material they will be reading. Math tends to build on other concepts so it only makes sense to review concepts and vocabulary that will help students to master new concepts.

This can be done through activities, pretests, questioning and discussions using worksheets and charts to record meaningful data. A common way that I have used is by using the K-W-L strategy. Either the teacher records or has students record what the K-know, W-want to know, (before reading) and L-have learned (after reading).

Web sites [] A discussion about the value of pre-teaching vocabulary.

[] Pre-Teaching Classroom Procedures

[] Benefits of our Pre-Teaching Approach

[] Help you create word clouds to present new vocabulary.

Video [] Video showing how to use wordle.net (word clouds) as a pre-teaching activity.

Journal articles [] Effect of Pre-teaching Reading Skills on the On-Task Behavior of Children Identified With Behavioral Disorders, The

[] Effects of Pre-Teaching and Re-Teaching on Math Achievement and Academic Self-Concept of Students with Low Achievement in Math.

Power Point Slide Presentation [] Will pre-teaching of vocabulary increase content area comprehension? [delete]

Mnemonics is a strategy that enhances memory through key words, acronyms and acrostics. You can use mnemonics to help you and you students remember just about anything. Often they use key words to be memorized and put them together in a way that they will be easily remembered. Some examples of mnemonics follow.
 * || [|eaverna]

When teaching about the “order of operations” in math, you can use the phrase, “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” or “PEMDAS” to help students remember the order of calculation – parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition and subtraction.

A common mnemonic, most people know to remember how many days are in each month is, “Thirty days has September, April June and November. All the rest have thirty-one except for February.”

Another example for helping students remember how to convert numbers within the metric system is “King Henry Died Monday Drinking Chocolate Milk” which translates to kilometer-1000 meters, hectometer 100 meters, decameter 10 meters, meter (base) 1 meter, decimeter 1/10 of a meter, centimeter 1/100 of a meter and millimeter 1/1000 of a meter.

This is a great strategy to use with students with learning disabilities. It helps to have some of these devices posted around your classroom or to have them write the strategy at the top of the page that they are working on so that they can refer back to it if they forget. It is something that they can take along with them to use throughout their lives.

An excellent book that has hundreds of examples of mnemonic devices is I Before E (Except After C): Old School Ways to Remember Stuff by Judy Parkinson.

Here are some web sites with even more information about mnemonics. [] At this website, you can discover more about mnemonics and the various types that exist.

[] Provides both a quick-reference source for people seeking information or help with specific subjects, and a library of assistance for anyone (teachers especially) seeking information about mnemonics in general.

[] Explains how mnemonic instruction works and examples of you can use with students.

[] This site looks at the science of memory and designing mnemonics. ||