How to Visualize and Make Connections

Visualize

Visualizing is a useful reading strategy to help you understand and respond to texts. When you visualize, you’re using the words on the page to create a picture in your mind. You probably already visualize while you read. For example, when you read a novel, you probably have a clear picture in your head of the main character.

In nonfiction or informational texts

• visualize the location, events, and key people

• try to picture the flow of events as though you’re watching a movie

• picture how the events are connected

• use the images that accompany a text to help you visualize

In fiction or narrative texts

• imagine the appearance of the characters, setting, and action

• pay attention to the emotional tone of the words — tone can help “colour” your visualization

• use descriptive words to add detail to your visualization

Reading Tips

• As you read, pay attention to the details that change your mental picture.

• If you lose track of what’s happening in a text, stop reading. Go back to the last point where you could visualize, and look for transition words that show the flow of events.

• If you’re having trouble visualizing a detail, try creating a drawing or diagram to help organize the details you do understand.

Make Connections

Another good reading strategy is making connections. When you make connections to a text, you’re making links from the text to what you already know. Making connections helps you understand and respond to a text. Connecting also makes it easier to remember information.

1 + 1 = 3

When you take an idea from a text and add one of your own ideas, you end up with more than just the two ideas you started with. Scientists who study brains say that making a connection like this actually rewires your brain to think in a new way.

While you read, think about

• the parts of the text that remind you of things you’ve experienced (text-to-self connections)

• the parts of the text that remind you of other texts (text-to-text connections)

• the parts of the text that remind you of facts you already know (text-to-world connections)

• how facts in the text might conflict with what you already know — a “disconnect” can be as valuable as a connection

• the value of the connections you’re making. Ask yourself: Do these connections help me better understand the text I’m reading?

Remember: Visualizing a scene or character can help you make connections. Making connections as you read a descriptive passage can help you visualize.

Transfer Your Learning

Connect to …

Speaking/Listening: Sit back to back with a partner. Take turns describing a simple shape without naming it. See if your partner can draw what you describe. How can visualizing and making connections help you while you listen?

Social Studies: How might making connections with what you already know help you as you read a newspaper article about refugees?