Using Graphica to Teach the Reading Power of Visualization

Graphic material is an excellent supplement to traditional print material for language development and literacy instruction at all levels.

Using the ‘Visualize’ skill from Adrienne Gear’s Five Reading Powers as a jumping-off point, one could begin by showing actual images and initiating a discussion in order to alert students to features they should notice about any images, before getting them to remember or imagine on their own. This technique, known as Visual Thinking Strategies, was developed by Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine for art education programs in museums and art galleries around the world. However, it can be easily and usefully applied to oral language development and literacy instruction at all levels.

Beginning with actual images offers the following benefits:

• First it removes the cognitive load of trying to visualize something from memory or imagination while learning the associated skills of observation and description.
• Second, it encourages students to develop their observation skills.
• Third, it creates an immediate experience which can be shared and discussed.
• Fourth, the discussion promotes oral language skills such as vocabulary, description, sequencing and rudimentary narrative structure, which serve as the basis for reading comprehension and written expression.
• Finally, it lays the groundwork for teaching students to visualize in the absence of an image by introducing the vocabulary, the technique, and the important features to notice when we think about an image, whether it is an actual image or a remembered one or an imagined one.

Laying this groundwork via graphic images serves as a useful supplement to the ‘Visualize’ chapter in Reading Power. I agree whole-heartedly with Gear’s argument that all teachers at all levels are responsible for providing reading comprehension instruction, so the examples below range from kindergarten to secondary school.The examples here represent images in a variety of media. For the sake of demonstration, I have arbitrarily designated them by level, but there’s no reason why any of them couldn’t be used at any level.