What+is+visualisation?

Sadoski and Paivio (1994), after reviewing research studies on imagery and comprehension, concluded that ‘mental imagery improves comprehension, memory, and interpretive understanding of text.’ And according to August, Flavell and Clift (1984), Garner (1980) and Paris and Myers (1981), ‘Visual imagery also helps readers in the crucial task of comprehension monitoring, that is, increasing awareness of whether text is being understood’ (Block & Pressley, 2002, p.306). Using **visualising techniques** involves students engaging directly with text to envisage, imagine and 'see' in the mind's eye images from that text. According to Gambrell and Bales (1986), Lindsay (1988) and Sadoski and Paivio (1994), ‘The research on imagery and reading comprehension is based on the theory that mental imagery is a knowledge representation system that readers can use in organizing, integrating, and retrieving information from written text’ (Block & Pressley 2002, p.305). It activates the use of all the senses: seeing, feeling, smelling, touching and tasting. Using approaches that enhance your students’ ability to articulate ‘this is what I'm picturing’ helps them to develop and strengthen their comprehension of text. Students say that visualizing text makes difficult parts easier to understand and makes the reading more interesting. This in turn motivates them to read more. Visual Representation ** involves using graphic organisers and other visual displays to represent the text, to communicate the information and show relationships beyond the use of words. ‘Teaching readers to use systematic visual graphs in order to organize ideas will benefit readers in remembering what they read and improve reading comprehension and achievement. . .’ (Block, 1993). This module provides examples of how you can scaffold and improve students’ comprehension development through the use of a variety of visualising techniques and through using visual representations. Obviously other strategies — such as using prior knowledge to predict and knowledge of text structure — assist your students to visualize, and producing visual representations helps them summarize. These and other links should be discussed so that your secondary students draw on a variety of comprehension strategies when required to understand texts even more.
 * Visualising ** is a powerful cognitive tool in comprehension. This module addresses the use of **visualising techniques** and the production of **visual representations** of what has been read. When these are used with a variety of other comprehension strategies, comprehension is greatly improved.

Good readers use visualizing techniques and visual representations in the following ways. Visual Literacy ** Understanding and making visual images is referred to as visual literacy. In a society where we are bombarded with visual images, students need to make sense of all the visual cues around them. Using visual practices such as imagery, attending to visual images, and using visual representations in your classroom will assist them in developing and improving their visual literacy. Developing **visualising techniques** and using visual representations will enable students to Visualising Techniques - Picture This in Your Mind’s Eye ** You can teach your secondary students to first picture in their mind’s eye what they predict a story is going to be about; they can check and recheck that prediction during and/or after the reading by picturing in the mind’s eye again. They can be using think-aloud and summarizing strategies at the same time. When you teach your students to visualize, you teach them to make mental images or pictures in their minds that can trigger the imagination to activate all five senses: hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and seeing.
 * A Bird’s Eye View Before, During and After Reading **
 * // Before reading // students can visually organize their thinking, visualizing the possible content, linking background knowledge and forming predictions.
 * // During reading // students can visualize the content, comparing predictions with ideas, themes and information in the text. They begin to form a visual representation of what they are reading.
 * // After reading // students can visually link new information with prior knowledge, visually represent what they have read in a graphic summary, and build new understandings.
 * It’s All in the View! **
 * Good reading-comprehension instruction encompasses the strategic use of visualizing techniques, such as imagery and the use of visual representations and thinking frameworks to engage the learner in a dynamic way. Research continues to highlight that the active transformation of text into a visual display improves knowledge, comprehension and memory.
 * By teaching visualizing techniques and visual representations through explicit modeling, you are providing learning opportunities to cater for all your students, recognizing that learners have different styles of learning and all need a repertoire of strategies to be successful.
 * Through continual guidance in how to produce visual representations, explaining why they are useful and involving your students in constructing the visual representations, you and the students will notice substantial improvement in comprehension.
 * help them to make sense of their visual world and develop visual literacy;
 * understand how words and images influence the way meanings are conveyed;
 * employ and use mental imagery as a self-regulating strategy to monitor comprehension;
 * construct displays to represent text relationships visually;
 * learn to construct organized summaries;
 * learn about text structures;
 * focus on concepts and relations between concepts;
 * learn how to view critically and thoughtfully.

You can also ask your students to sketch what they are picturing and then discuss what is in their pictures and why they are sketched in that way. One way to do this is **Sketch to Stretch **, where students do individual sketches and then explain them to a partner or a group. After the sharing, they decide if they wish to change the sketches in any way based on their explanation(s). Students with limited life experience and little background knowledge of what they are reading about have fewer visual images to draw upon, and will benefit from:
 * seeing films, DVDs, videos, web pages or TV shows such as documentaries, travel shows and news clips that provide them with pictorial information about a range of topics;
 * seeing things firsthand through field trips and neighbourhood walks;
 * having access to websites with pictorial information;
 * having access to photographs of places, events and people in various cultures and different historical periods;
 * reading or being read many picture books and factual materials on a range of topics with lots of pictures and diagrams.


 * Reference: Di Snowball - Reading Comprehension Strategies Years 5-8 **