Cornerstone/MCSD Professional Development

What is visualization?

"Proficient readers spontaneously and purposely create mental images while and after they read. The images emerge from all five senses as well as the emotions and are anchored in a reader's prior knowledge."

Ellin Keene and Susan

Zimmermann, Mosaic of Thought

Why teach visualization?Visualization is an ongoing, creative act. Pictures, smells,

tastes, and feelings burst forth, and the reader’s mind organizes them to help the story make sense.

Readers use images to immerse themselves in rich detail as they read. The detail gives depth and dimension to the reading.

Images from reading frequently become part of the reader’s writing. Evoking mental images helps readers create images in writing.

This ongoing creation of sensory images anchored in a reader’s prior knowledge keeps the reader hooked on reading.

What are the results of teaching What are the results of teaching visualization?visualization? Reading is a satisfying activity.

It brings the text ALIVE!

“Comprehension of textual information increases when students can create detailed mental pictures of what they are reading.” (Muehlher, Sieman)

Students are better able to think about and recall what they’ve read.

Concrete ExperienceConcrete ExperienceLook at the object on your table carefully. Feel its texture. Smell it.

Put the object away. Close your eyes and see the details in your mind.

Draw a picture of the object or describe it in writing.

Connect to Reading and WritingConnect to Reading and Writing

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one, you will feel that all of that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. (Hemingway)