Visualizing & Verbalizing

For Language Comprehension and Thinking

Kelly Pierce - 2014 DTSD

Who?: Students with

Structure Words

1. What strong decoding skills, but

2. Size weak in comprehension
3. Color

What?: V & V Where?: typically

4. Number
5. Shape
6. Where provides a sequence for small group pull-out
7. Movement stimulating imagery.
8. Mood

When?: ideally, 30 Why?: to build

9. Background
10. Perspective
11. When minutes daily comprehension skills
12. Sound through visualizing

How?: The Process… “Making Movies in Our Heads”

1. Setting the Climate: the brain has 2 sides, the left side sees words, the right side sees pictures…we
must use both sides to be able to understand what we read

2. Picture to Picture: using simple pictures and then pictured scenes, introduce structure words, goal is
to begin to develop student’s ability to verbalize from a given picture, increase length and complexity
of student’s expressive language

3. Single Sentence Imaging: introduce sentence, underline keywords (words that help you visualize)
stopping to visualize and verbalize that word as you go through the sentence, teacher summarizes,
check through structure words, briefly describe the picture in your head/summarize sentence.

The children are jumping in the leaf pile.

4. Sentence by Sentence imaging: using the same process from step 3, but for 3-4 sentences that go
together…take more time to “anchor” the first sentence, before moving more quickly through the rest

5. Sentence by Sentence with higher-order-thinking skills (HOTS): same as step 4, but asking higher
order thinking questions as the last step

6. Paragraph Imaging: read a complete paragraph, student immediately gives a word summary,
teacher questions a few specific images, higher order thinking questions are asked.
Bell, N. (2007). Visualizing and Verbalizing. San Luis Obispo, CA: Gander Publishing.
Classroom Application
-In the regular education setting-

What do you picture in your

classroom?

Get Ready to read Read & Comprehend

-introduce key vocabulary or amazing words
by checking through each structure word card
-use structure word cards to expand verbal
sentences created when discussing vocabulary
words, spelling words, or phonics words
-post structure word cards in classroom so
students/teacher can reference them when
necessary while reading weekly story
-use strategies when reading the read alouds to
whole group

- - stop the “Building Background” recordings

periodically to visualize and verbalize what
- students are hearing
- -
- -
Centers Language Arts

-give students a picture, sentence or story
(most likely one they are already familiar with)
and have partners or small groups use the
structure word cards to visualize and verbalize
their picture or “movie”
-use underlining/highlighting strategy in small
groups for short passages & “Fresh Reads”
-
-
-have students fill out a graphic organizer using
the structure words to describe a picture and
then write a story about it
-use structure word cards to help students
expand simple sentences/add details to “Snap
Shot” writing
-
-
-

Other

-find pictures on the internet or in magazines to illustrate the structure word cards…students could
even do this to make their own set of structure word cards.

Kelly Pierce , DTSD - 2012