Visualize...The Movie in your Mind

Happy Monday! 

My Monday ran pretty smoothly and I am actually home before 5:00. I cannot complain. :) I had an impromptu observation this morning but our reading lesson went well (read on to find out more about the lesson). Here's to hoping the rest of the week runs just as smoothly!

One of my goals for the school year is to do a better job teaching and modeling reading strategies. I have found so many great ideas out here in blog land and now that I am really getting into the school year we are jumping in head first. I am trying to find some ways to incorporate the strategies into our daily routines and our school's curriculum as much as possible so that my students don't miss the connection between our mini lessons and the real world. 

Today my class worked on visualizing while reading. We used our class novel, Socks by Beverly Cleary,  to help us practice this skill. We discussed that visualizing is like seeing the events of the book as a movie in your mind.

The lesson began as I read the first 4 pages of Socks aloud  while the students had their heads down. During this time their only job was to visualize the setting, characters and events in those first 4 pages.  Then they turned to their neighbor and shared what they visualized as I read. 

Next, I passed out the same 4 pages and had the students read the passage silently. Any time they found a particular word or phrase that helped them to make that movie in their mind, they would highlight it. My kids were all kinds of happy about this...some got a little highlight happy! 

After they had highlighted the page I asked them questions like, "What does Debbie look like?" They would give their answer and I would respond, "How do you know?" It was their job to go back into the text and find the proof in the text. "I know that her arms are red because on page 11 it says that...."This helped them to make the connection between the words on the page and the things they visualized in their minds.

Then for the fun part. The kids illustrated the scene and provided at least three quotes from the book that helped them to visualize the scene from the story. Overall I think that this lil project really helped them to cement the concept of visualizing in their minds. We still need some more work before they have  automaticity with this reading skill but I think that they are off to a good start! 

How was your Monday? Leave me a comment and let me know. :)