Picture
This!
Rationale:
Comprehension is an important part to becoming a good reader. It helps
readers
to understand what they are reading. One strategy that readers can use
to
increase comprehension is visualization. Visualization is when readers
make
pictures in their heads about what they reading. This lesson is
designed to
help students increase comprehension through visualization.
Materials:
Class
set Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith
Color
Pencils
White
Paper
Pencils
A
poster board or chart paper with this poem written on it:
Granpa
Dropped His Glasses
Leroy F.
Jackson
Granpa dropped his glasses once
In a pot of dye,
And when he put them on again
He saw a purple sky.
Purple fires were rising up
From a purple hill,
Men were grinding purple cider
at a purple mill.
Purple Adeline was playing
With a purple doll;
Little purple dragon flies
Were crawling up the wall.
And at the supper-table
He got crazy as a loon
From eating purple apple dumplings
With a purple spoon.
Procedure:
1.
Review silent
reading with
the students.
Today we
are going to talk about visualizing what we are reading, but first we
have to
review silent reading. What is silent reading? That is correct. Silent
reading
is when we read to ourselves quietly and our mouths do not move.
2.
I want everyone to
put their
heads on their desk, relax, close your eyes, and listen to me very
closely. The sun is shining very bright and it is hot day at the
park.
You run to the swing and swing as high as you can. You get hot and go
get a
cold glass of lemonade. I want you to imagine what is going on in your
picture.
Who is at the park with you? How are feeling? What kinds of smells do
you
smell? Food? What do you hear? Give them ample amount of time to
imagine
their pictures. I want everybody to open their eyes and we will
talk about
our visualizations. Model for the students your
visualization to show
them how to do it effectively. In my picture, I was
at an
amusement park. I got really tired from all of the rides and bought me
something to drink. I could hear people screaming on the roller
coasters and I
could smell the corn dogs, cotton candy, and popcorn in the air. What I
just
showed you is called visualization. Visualization is when you imagine
or see a
picture in your head. It is important to visualize when you are reading
to help
you understand what is going on.
3. Put up the poem poster on the
board. Give
each student a piece of paper and colored pencils. I am going to read this poem
to you and
I want you to read along with me silently. I want you to visualize or
make a
mental picture about what is going on in poem. Read the poem
to
class. Now that we have read the poem, I want you to draw the
picture in
your head onto your paper. Discuss line by line what is
going on
after the students have completed their drawing. In my
visualization,
Granpa has on some silly purple glasses.
Everything that he looks at seems purple. The
sky is purple, the dragon flies are
purple, and even his food is purple. I
see his sitting at the dinner table eating purple food!
Yuck! Good
job! Visualization can help you understand a story by picturing it in
your
minds!
4.
Give everybody a
copy of
Chocolate Fever, a pencil and one piece of copy paper. Have the
students to
read chapter 1 of the books silently to themselves. After you have read chapter
one (4
pages), then I want you to draw on your paper a picture of what you
visualized.
Write about your picture at the bottom of the page to help you remember
what it
is about. Pay close attention to adjectives.
Adjectives are describing words. These words will help you with your
pictures.
We will do this after each chapter. At the end of the book, we will
have a
visualization book or picture book of all the chapters. This lesson
will
have to be done over a course of a week.
5.
Allow the
students to
finish their pictures for chapter 1. I want you to turn to a
neighbor and I want you to talk about
your visualizations. Compare and contrast them to see how they are the
same and
how they are different. Collect the students’ pictures and
keep them
so that at the end they can be put in a folder together for each
student.
6. Assessment: I would assess the
students by
looking at their pictures. I would make sure that their pictures match
the
story and that they are not making it up. Have a checklist for each
chapter
about the important parts such as characters and what happened in each
chapter.
Reference:
Take
a Picture with the Camera in your Head! www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/guides/schofieldrl.html
by Rebecca Schofield
Smith,
Robert Kimmel. Chocolate Fever. Putnam Juvenile. 1989.
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