Janine Toole PhD - Visualization Skills for Reading Comprehension (Six-Minute Thinking Skills Book 2)

Welcome to the Six-Minute Thinking Skills series. These workbooks are designed for busy parents and professionals who need easy-to-use and effective materials for working with learners who struggle with the thinking skills required for school success.

This workbook, Visualization Skills, provides step-by-step activities to quickly build the ability to visualize information while reading.

Visualizing is our ability to create mental pictures in our heads based on the text we read or the words we hear. It is one of the key skills required for reading comprehension.

Students who visualize as they read not only have a richer reading experience but can recall what they have read for longer periods of time.

Moreover, having a strong mental image of a text allows students to more accurately and effectively answer Higher Order Thinking (HOT) questions, such as inferencing, prediction, etc.

If your learner struggles with reading comprehension, working on visualization skills should be high on your list of priorities.

Key details of this workbook are:

• Suitable for 1-1 or classroom use

This book can be used in a classroom or with a single learner.

• Gradually increments difficulty

Learners begin with simple visualization tasks, which gradually increment as the book progresses. By the end, learners visualize multi-paragraph fiction and non-fiction passages.

• No-prep. No extra materials required

Everything needed is included in the book - except for a pencil or pen! The student can write their answers in the book, or use a piece of paper if the book needs to be reused. A few of the tasks require color pencils or crayons. These can be skipped if needed.

• Small chunks. Use any time

Our worksheets are designed for six-minute sessions. Anytime you have a spare moment, your learner can accomplish the next incremental step in their learning journey.

The ability to visualize as you read is key for school and learning success. Support your struggling readers with this fun, engaging workbook that will build your learners ability and confidence in this important skill.

Welcome Kindle user!

A workbook on Kindle. how does that work?

Easily!

This workbook is designed to be equally effective whether you write in the print version or use your own paper with the Kindle version.

Just make sure your learner has a fresh piece of paper and something to write with, and you are ready to go!

A great advantage of the Kindle version is that you can alter the on-screen appearance of the page by changing the font size in your Kindle app.

Its thats easy! As it should be :-)

No student wants to spend extra time learning. Follow the guidelines in this section to promote efficient and motivating progress for your student.

1. Have a consistent and regular schedule.

Consistency and regularity are important if you want to reach a goal. So, choose a regular schedule for your six-minute sessions, get your learners agreement and stick to it!

In a school setting, make this task a regular part of your students day. In a home setting, aim for 3-4 times per week.

2. Devise a reward system.

Working on skill deficits is hard work for any learner. Appreciate your students effort by building in a reward system.

This may include a reward when a specific number of exercises are finished, when tasks are completed correctly on the first try, or whatever specific goal will encourage your learner at this point in their journey.

Remember to reward based on effort as well as correctness.

3. Include time for review and correction.

After your student has completed the activity, review your students work.

When identifying an error, make a positive statement and then provide the least information needed for the learner to make a correction. For example, prefer

Nice job. I can see you have drawn the desk and the pen. There is one more thing mentioned in the text. Can you see it and draw it?

to

You forgot to draw the chair.

The first method develops the students ability to review their work and find the error. This valuable skill will lead to fewer errors in future worksheets.

The second method simply tells the student what to do.

Another good technique for reviewing is to ask your learner open questions. (Not Yes/No questions). If you see your learner create an image that does not fit the text, help them question their images. Ask questions like, What does the text say about what the boy was doing?, What did the text say about WHERE this was happening?

Make sure that your learner always has a chance to physically correct their work.

4. Dont evaluate drawing skills

During the workbook, your learner sketches what he or she has pictured for a text. This drawing is a representation of the mental image that your learner has created.

The quality of the drawing is completely irrelevant. A simple sketch is all that is needed. The only requirement is that you can recognize or your learner can explain how the drawing matches the text.

Dont let your learner spend time elaborating the drawing or making it perfect. A quick representation is all that is needed. It is the mental work to create the image that we want to build, not the manual proficiency to transfer it to the page.

For this reason we have quite small spaces available for the drawings in the workbook - to promote quick sketches instead of elaborate drawings. If your learner has fine motor issues and needs a bigger space, just grab some paper instead.

5. Do the whole book twice!

The first time you go through the workbook, follow the directions as written. This will help your learner build basic visualization skills.

When you reach the end, start back at the beginning, this time completing the exercises orally. This extra practice will develop your learners visualization skills even further.

The second time through, instead of drawing their mental image, your learner will describe to you the images they are creating.

This is harder work for your learner, but is excellent practice for building visualization skills.

Make sure to use questioning to elicit further details from your learner.

6. Ask questions to get more details

A really important part of helping your learner develop visualization skills is to ask questions to help your learner develop a richer picture.

Use the nine visualization words below (taught in the workbook) to ask your learner for more details about their mental image.

WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, ACTION, EMOTION, RELATION, HOW, VISUAL DETAILS, OTHER SENSORY DETAILS

For example:

• Where is your picture happening?
• I can see youve drawn a house. What is it made of?
• Are there any smells?
• Is the train in front of the tree?

Two types of questions are recommended:

1. Open questions that use a WH word. These are words like WHO, WHAT, WHERE, etc. Answers to these questions are more detailed than answers to simple Yes/No questions.

2. Alternative options questions. These questions are best for learners who struggle with expressive language, or who are still getting used to describing their images. These are questions like:

• Is the train big or small?