Visualizing, Verbalizing and Vocabbing

Picture it - Sicily...1922...

To know this reference, you may have to be of a particular generation - or personality.  So let me explain.

Sophia Petrillo, the wisest and eldest member of the Golden Girls, had the right idea when telling a story.  She set the scene. She let you "picture it" -pun intended - before she told the story. Setting the scene helps your listeners visualize your words which improves comprehension, understanding of language, and memory of text!

Visualizing and Verbalizing

Visualizing and Verbalizing, an intervention program created by Nanci Bell of Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes, targets the development of concept imagery to essentially improve facets of reading.  At its core, the program emphasizes the use of teacher directed questions to assist students in forming images while eliciting language.

Mental imagery has “reliable effects on improving memory for text” (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 4-42).  This skill is naturally developing for most students. However, those diagnosed with a learning disability in reading often struggle to form pictures in their head for presented words.  This is often due to the fact that their focus, during reading, is on decoding the words. 

If a reader has to spend most of his/her time decoding each word within a sentence, comprehension fails.  This results in an inability to develop concept imagery impacts comprehension; thus, delaying the progression of reading for students.

The Verbalizing and Visualizing program employs an explicit and systematic instruction in order to support this lagging skill for struggling students.  

Programs require time.  And who has time for that?!  

As a result of the realities of being a teacher and squeezing it all in, I modified the concept.  It’s principles stand as the basis for a learning strategy that I call Visualizing, Verbalizing, and Vocabbing!

Visualizing, Verbalizing, and Vocabbing in Reading!

I consistently teach my students to visualize the text’s words in their head.  There are moments in our reading groups, where we pause to imagine and/or act out the text.  

While my students are amazing, they are like all students.  We didn’t just jump right into these learning moments. Instead, I utilized some key tools to improve students’ reading comprehension.

The first step was through STORY MAPPING.  Story mapping is a visual framework strategy for building comprehension.  The map enables students to summarize main ideas, organize information and ideas, make connections, recall text events, and communicate about a text.

Visualize

After reading a text, create a visual of what you read.  Students should identify story elements such as characters, problems, setting, etc.  Essentially, you are drawing what happened.  

To help your students with this skill, ask them questions.  Where were the characters? What could they see? What were the characters doing?  What were the characters saying? What is the problem of the story? What actions did the characters take toward solving the problem?  Did the setting change? Was the problem solved? What is the lesson learned? (Insert a social emotional learning moment here!)

Create a visual with these questions as a scaffolded support towards independence with the skill.

Verbalize

Have students verbalize the answers to the questions you ask.  Teachers should promote a class discussion of the events that occurred in the text.  This promotes oral language development, not only social language, but also academic language is being developed as students learn how to discuss text.  

Verbalizing a text’s ideas also allows students to wrestle with the text!  Any misunderstandings can be ironed out, while different perspectives can be debated.

Vocabbing

The oral discussion enables students to apply newly learned vocabulary connected to the text as well as practice oral discussion rules and the language of book discussions!

My story maps include words and pictures.  The words that I jot on our story maps are key vocabulary related to the text.  The pictures tell the text’s story, while the words help to match ideas and images.  Both tools go hand-in-hand to support understanding of the text.

You can use a variety of graphic organizers to support this strategy or just wing it with your own on the fly mapping!

Story mapping can be applied to the content areas too!  After reading a non-fiction text, we re-read it, going line by line.  We analyze what the sentences are saying by Visualizing and making connections between the ideas.  We Verbalize these concepts through discussion. Simultaneously, we draw the ideas. Next, we do some Vocabbing, by jotting down keywords needed for comprehension.

Another tool to support Visualizing, Verbalizing, and Vocabbing is visual thinking.

Here’s how it works!

Visualizing

I will post an image on the front board related to the text we are reading.  Students will come to the front and write around their images, their reactions, questions, things they noticed, etc. around the image.  

Verbalizing
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I then have them discuss the image in groups.  If they have any new ideas, they can write it around the image.  Lastly, we discuss the image. 

Vocabbing

The writing around the image enables students to apply newly learned vocabulary in the context of the written language.  It also gives struggling students a written support for the oral discussion of the image.

In both instances, students are getting multiple and varying opportunities to apply vocabulary.

For example, one of my groups is currently reading Number the Stars so I have been using primary source images from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.  The students have begun referencing the images while discussing the text. Anecdotally, I believe that the images are helping the students visualize and as a result, are demonstrating improved comprehension and verbalization of this understanding.

Read alouds are another excellent practice that supports Visualizing, Verbalizing, and Vocabbing. Read aloud texts are chosen for their lively and explicit language. When we read aloud to our students, we should be modeling the language of a text.

So how do I implement read alouds using my 3 V strategy?

Visualizing
Read the text aloud.  Have your students form mental images.  Ask them to close their eyes and picture the image that the author’s words are creating.

Verbalizing
Build oral language through discussion of these images.  Make your visualizing real through modeling your visualizations of the text with visual representations.  Draw quick pictures of what the words help you to imagine. 

Vocabbing
Talk about specific words and sentences.  How do these change what you are visualizing?  What tools is the author using to help the reader visualize?  

Connecting Visualizing, Verbalizing, and Vocabbing to Writing

You can connect this strategy to a writing prompt or lesson!  Have your students use language that creates vivid mental images.  Partner them up to visualize each others’ writing!

Read a text about Paul Revere’s ride in Social Studies.  What does the night look like? How are the people feeling?  

Ask questions!  How do the author’s words and your background knowledge help you to visualize?  How does the vocabulary support your learning and understanding? How does this tool help you comprehend a text better?

Read a math picture book and follow the same procedure!  

​~By Miss Rae​

Here are some resources that demonstrate this technique if you want to implement it in your classroom for enriching discussions AND improved comprehension!!!

Resources:
National Reading Panel (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. NIH Publication No. 00-4754. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.