Madeline Northrop

Rationale:

As students are finishing up how to learn to read, they must begin to read to learn. Reading to learn relies on comprehension of a text, and one technique to help students comprehend text better, is visualization. Visualization is imagining or picturing the text as you are reading it. When children are learning to read they often have picture books, so they do not have to visualize the image on their own because it has been done for them. This lesson will help students how to visualize through modeling and practicing visualizing an expository text.  

 

Materials:

• 100 Things to Do When You Grow Up

• Paper

• Colored pencils/crayons

• Pencil

 

Procedure:

1. Say: “Today we are going to talk about a strategy that helps us comprehend the meaning of our message. Comprehending is just understanding what our message is about. When we know what our message is about we can learn something from it. Which is what we are going to do today! One way we can know more about our message is if we visualize it. Does anyone have a guess on what they think it means to visualize something?” Wait for students response. “Yes, visualizing is when we make a picture in our mind from what we read.”

2. Say: “We’re going to read a book about 100 different jobs you could have when you get older. I’ll show you how I would visualize one of these jobs, and then you can read about a different job and do the same thing. I’ll read a passage about Cranberry Farmers.

   • ‘When it’s time to harvest the cranberries, the bog is flooded with about 18 inches of fresh water. Then, the farmer uses a big piece of equipment called a water reel to loosen the berries from their vines. After the berries pop off the vines, they float to the surface of the bog, where the farmer gathers them together. Next, the cranberries are loaded onto a truck and sent off to become juice or sauce or any other of the many cranberry products.’"

3. Say: “When I read this passage, I think about a farmer in the middle of a bog. Our first vocabulary word is bog. This can be a pretty new word that some of you might not have heard of. A bog is just an area that is very muddy and mushy dirt, that often times people can’t even stand without sinking into the mud a little. So, I imagine a farmer not on a farm, but in a very muddy area, surrounded by cranberry plants. When he has to harvest them, I imagine that his muddy farm is filled with water. I can then picture him getting out a big machine that picks all the cranberries for him. Next, I saw all the cranberries floating on top of the water and him picking each of them into a bucket to put on his truck to send away.”

4. Say: “We’re going to read one more that we can practice together. While I read this passage, I want everyone to close their eyes and visualize what I am reading. This passage is about someone who has a job as a rodeo clown. I’ll read their job description while you all close your eyes to visualize it.

   • ‘While part of their job is to entertain the crowd between events with skits, jokes, and ticks, the other part of their job is no laughing matter. Rodeo clowns, also known as bullfighters are in the ring during bull-riding competitions to protect bull riders once they jump or are thrown from the bull. This often means that the rodeo clowns will try to distract the bull from charging and gouging a rider by getting it to chase them instead. Oh, and one more thing—bulls can weigh a ton. That’s 2,000 pounds. That’s as heavy as eight refrigerators! It’s a very dangerous job, and it requires serious bravery.’"

5. Say: “Can I hear what someone pictured when I read what a rodeo clown does?” Wait for the students response. “Did anyone think about the types of skits they might do between the bull fights? Did anyone imagine what it looked like to get chased by a bull?”

6. Say: “Now, I want you to each pick out a different career from the book and read it. After you read, I want you to draw a picture of what you visualize while reading the book. On the back of your drawing, describe what your drawing is with full sentences.”

7. To assess your student’s ability to visualize you will look at their drawings of their jobs and how they describe their photo. While assessing their drawing look for:

____ The student drew a photo (2)

____ The photo includes the title of the career they read about (2)

____ The photo is an accurate representation of that career (2)

____ The student has a description (2)

____ The description is an accurate representation of the photo drawn (2)

____ The description and photo accurately represent what passage they read (2)

Total: ____/12

 

Resources:

• Kelsey Williams, Losing Our Mayan-ds (Minds) About Reading  https://krw00218.wixsite.com/krwlessondesigns/reading-to-learn

• 100 Things to Do When You Grow Up National Geographic

​