Literacy Matters - Vol 21 - Winter 2021

brain’s ability to associate with smells, sounds, taste, emotional feelings, or touch sensations without a physically present item or trigger. The stronger the mental associations are, the stronger the cognitive connection with a text or otherwise transmitted information (Kocaarslan, 2016). Cognitive neuroscience research verifies different parts of the brain are engaged in the processing of images, oral or written language information and that activating both areas improves cognitive skills (Crosson et al., 2010; Christodoulou, 2017; Murdaugh et al., 2015; 2016). The explicit, carefully scaffolded, multisensory comprehension and verbalization strategies developed by Bell (2007), which serve as a foundation for the comprehension and verbalizing practices shared in this article, integrate such multi-modal processing of verbal (speaking) and nonverbal (imagery making) stimuli to improve academic comprehension and speaking skills. In addition to being grounded in literacy acquisition research that demonstrates the importance of well- developed, explicitly learned, oral language for strong reading and listening comprehension skills (Foorman et al., 2015; Pratt & Urbanowski, 2016), these multi-modal processing strategies are grounded in research on explicit, multisensory, carefully scaffolded and metacognitive language (MSML) instruction to develop effective reading, spelling, and writing skills among students. Research support for the effectiveness of these literacy teaching principles is extensive for native English speakers (for summary, see Birsh & Carraker, 2018) and nonnative speakers of English (for summary, see Schneider & Kulmhofer, 2016). Each MSML principle applies within the context of MI &V. For instance, the principle of carefully sequenced instruction is applied by offering teachers different levels of challenge to strengthen students’ comprehension and verbalizing skills. The multisensory principle is implemented as students engage simultaneously in kinesthetic-tactile learning by touching and moving manipulatives and verbalizing thoughts, questions, and mental images, and listening to peers in their processes of making sense of information (comprehending). The metacognitive principle is implemented when students test and revise hypotheses about the comprehended information with peers and teachers. After a MI &V practice, they also briefly reflect on what strategies worked, where they struggled, and what helped them make sense in the comprehension process. The process builds students’ confidence in using critical thinking skills to self-monitor and self-correct speaking and cognitive processes such as MI &V when making sense of read or heard information. In these practices, students make sense of the text in authentic dialog with peers while asking questions, processing responses, and refining and verbalizing their mental images. When students cannot create proper mental images or movies when hearing or reading the information, they can only comprehend isolated facts and details but are not able to comprehend these pieces of information in the context of the overall frame of reference or ’gestalt’ of the information that is more than its isolated parts. Thus, weak mental imaging skills result in students struggling to comprehend and extract inferred information ‘between the lines,’ to identify details like

cause and effect relationships in written or oral information, or to understand figurative expressions (i.e., idioms, metaphors). This leads students to fail to answer higher-order thinking questions or even questions about specific facts (Lindamood- Bell Learning Processes, 2015). Without being able to form mental images, following directions is often a challenge as well. Commonly, along with these challenges, there can be weak oral expression skills because the listener cannot retain enough details and overall messages of what was said (Bell, 2007, 1991; Fayez & Hor, 2009; Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes, 2015; Sadoski & Paivio, 2013). The following four instructional phases introduce MSML teaching strategies to strengthen comprehension and oral expression skills. Mental Imaging and Verbalizing Practices in Various Phases Next, four gradually more challenging MI &V practices are shared. While the original MI &V practices the author learned at a Visualization Verbalization program workshop were designed for one-on-one intervention practices (Bell, 2007; Bell & Bonetti, 2005; Fayez & Hor, 2009; Pooja & Laud 2009), the author-created MI &V practices introduced in this article were designed and fine-tuned over a 20-year period for classroom use as small group practices or whole group practices when the teacher models each practice phase. Before providing details about each MI &V activity, general information applicable to each type of MI &V practice is shared. An overview of teacher and student roles in each MI &V practice phase provides readers with a frame of reference for each MI &V practice phase described in more detail afterward. Figure 2 shares a performance check chart teachers can use with any practice phase. Implementation Options and Time Investment MI &V practices can be used (a) before a topic, unit, reading or writing task to activate pre-knowledge and learner interest with a provoking image or sentence/paragraph; (b) during a unit to practice specific vocabulary (i.e., adjectives to describe a person, a scenery, sentences to name procedural steps), academic sentence patterns (i.e., sentences to express a sequence of events or cause and effect relationships) or review essential facts; or (c) MI &V practices can be implemented after a unit or reading task as a cumulative learning activity that engages students in using the learned content or reviewing it for a test (i.e., a social studies or science topic). Based on students’ skill levels, teachers can implement one practice phase without going through all the others. Moving through all phases sequentially is optional but advised for those students who need comprehension practice in a more sequential progression with more repetitive practice. Additional practice rounds can be added when the need arises. Grouping students based on skill levels enables different groups to be engaged in other MI &V practice activities at the same time and allows teachers to provide differentiated MI &V learning experiences in a time-efficient manner.

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