This chapter is about using sensory images to enhance comprehension. Keene starts the chapter with a poem by Jane Kenyton and then tells about the mental images she created while reading the poem. The creation of sensory images is important for readers to connect personally and sometimes permanently to a text according to Keene.
Creating sensory images was never a comprehension strategy I focused on in past years. This year I have a student in my class who has very poor comprehension skills - the worst I have ever seen. I decided to start using a program with him called Visualizing and Verbalizing (V/V). The V/V program is used to make students aware of the images they create as they read and give them the ability to discuss their images. The program starts out with pictures and eventually ends with multi-paragraph passages.
This chapter was interesting to me because of my special interest in the strategy this year - thanks to my student. I thought Keene had a good point when she said that the images we create don't necessarily have to come from the senses, but can also come from the emotional part of our minds - like when she pictured her deceased grandfather's face for the old man's face in Kenyton's poem. These types of images are the most important to create because they help the reader understand and make connections to the text at the same time.
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I'm making a text-to-text connection with your writing, Michelle. I finished reading "TO Understand" and the author, Ellin Keene, takes the thinking in "Mosaic of Thought" a step further in this text. Yet, she continues drilling the idea that most important are the emotional connections that we make to text sinced that's what makes concepts most memorable. And the whole purpose of reading is to be able to retain and apply what we've read.
ReplyDeleteA point that I loved in this chapter is that all of us at one time or another have gone to see a movie after reading the book and were very disappointed because we felt the movie looked "all wrong." That is the easiest way I can explain to my students that we DO visualize what's going on when we're reading. Looking into how, why, and what does it look like is a fun activity that combines imagination with comprehension. When a student in this chapter started verbalizing their mental imagery and Keene prodded and questioned them about every detail, I was fascinated to see that the student could answer about every single detail they imagined the character to have.
ReplyDeleteMaking emotional connections really works with my students. I haven't consciously emphasized these connections. They just seem to happen sometimes. Several of my troublesome students have had their dad pass away recently. We've read some stories that discuss death and/or relationships with fathers. It's amazing how many hands shoot up with connections. I can tell that they get emotionally involved with the text because their writing responses are very explicit and thoughtful. I have never thought to emphasize emotional connections as a reading strategy, but I think I will do this from now on. Thanks for bringing it to my attention Michelle!
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