Literacy Matters - Vol 21 - Winter 2021

Improving Academic Comprehension and Speaking Skills with Interactive Mental Imagery and Verbalization Strategies

by Elke Schenider Winthrop University, Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy

Literacy Matters Reading Matters

ABSTRACT—Strong academic reading and listening comprehension, and speaking skills are the foundation for developing solid literacy skills and content knowledge during and after elementary school years. A solid body of research supports the benefits of many comprehension and academic speaking strategies. However, the literature on research-evidenced comprehension strategies that discuss the importance of explicitly teaching mental imaging and verbalization skills to aid comprehension is sparse. Therefore, this article introduces explicit research-evidenced strategies to teach native and nonnative speakers effective mental imaging and academic verbalization skills in small group cooperative learning activities. Differentiations for nonnative speakers are included. [Keywords: reading and listening comprehension, mental imaging, verbalizing, multisensory learning] Introduction “ Now that I can make movies in my head, I get what I read- and I remember better what people say to me !”This statement was given by a third-grader with good reading but poor comprehension skills after having completed a six-week special comprehension intervention the author supervised as part of a graduate literacy course. The student’s comment expresses this article’s purpose clearly: Sharing a student- engaging, research-evidenced approach to improve elementary students’ reading and listening comprehension skills by teaching them how to create mental images and verbalize their reflective thinking using academic oral language. There are several reasons for focusing on expanding teachers’ existing instructional ‘toolboxes’ to strengthen students’ reading and listening comprehension skills. More than ever, elementary school teachers in South Carolina are under pressure to implement special strategies to ensure every student’s literacy skills are at grade level by the end of third grade to comply with the Read to Succeed legislation (SCDE, 2014). Additionally, South Carolina’s recent acceptance of Multi-Tiered Support Services (MTSS) for struggling students (SCDE, 2019) expects regular education teachers to implement effective, research-evidenced strategies to remediate weaknesses in students’ literacy skills in the general education classroom. Furthermore, teachers are faced with carrying the primary responsibility to provide adequate comprehension instruction to an exponentially growing number of English language learners (ELs) because of a shortage of ESOL teachers in the state (National Center for Education Statistics, 2020; U.S. Department of Education, 2016). Strong comprehension skills are also emphasized in South Carolina’s K-5 Career Ready

Standards (SCDE, 2015). However, despite teachers’ consistent efforts to equip students with strong comprehension skills, South Carolina’s 2019 reading comprehension scores were significantly below the national average, with 68 percent of fourth-graders performing below grade level (NCES, 2019). In addition to these state-specific reasons, recent research on the impact of digital media on reading comprehension provides arguments for a more specific focus on teaching visualization and verbalization skills to improve comprehension skills. At present, 82 percent of children’s daily reading is digital (Wolf, 2019). Computers, tablets, and smartphones serve as academic reading tools and entertainers in students’ lives. These media flood young brains with pre-produced images, often at a fast pace that stimulates the brain consistently without allowing children to develop image creation skills based on their own connections and realizations. This limits students’ chances of connecting deeper with texts by drawing inferences or critical questioning (Baron, 2015; Mangen & van der Weel, 2016; Radesky et al., 2015; Wolf, 2019). Research over the past 17 years with 171,055 participants has shown reading informational and narrative texts on a digital device prevents children from developing deep reading and comprehension skills (Delgado et al., 2018). As a result of literacy instruction’s digitalization, an increasing number of children may struggle with academic listening or reading comprehension tasks because their brains are not used to creating images based on reading or hearing information. Without proper comprehension, meaningful and critical oral dialog is significantly impeded. Thus, learning to create mental movies of what is read or heard is crucial for developing young bi-literate brains that engage deeply with print and digital texts and lead to critical dialog about the content (Wolf, 2019). Another reason for infusing explicit visual imagery and verbalization strategies into comprehension instruction more frequently is research conducted with regular education and special education students, as well as Els, with narrative and expository text types have provided evidence for significant positive impact on comprehension performance (i.e., Atoum & Resiq, 2018; Christodoulou et al., 2017; Joffe et al., 2007; Long et al., 1989; Murdaugh et al., 2015; 2016; Rader, 2009; Wilson, 2012). Research specifically related to the visualization and verbalization strategies shared in this article also confirm the positive impact of such strategies on comprehension, whether conducted in small groups or with whole classrooms (Bell, 1991; 2007; Bell & Bonetti, 2005; Christodoulou, 2017; Fayez & Hor, 2009; Murdaugh et al., 2015; 2016; Lindamood- Bell Learning Processes, 2015; Pooja & Laud, 2009).

| 34 | Literacy Matters | Volume 21 • Winter 2021

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