Literacy Matters - Vol 21 - Winter 2021

another square when hearing or retelling“ youmust stay home, ”a third square when hearing or retelling“ because you don’t want to infect, ”and a fourth one when hearing or retelling“ other people at school .”It is also acceptable when a student can associate all the information in the ‘because-clause’at once, touching one additional square for “because you don’t want to infect other people.” However, experience has shown that several essential elements in a clause may at first have to be supported by touching several squares. Should students miss important information during a retelling, the reader re-reads the sentence as often as needed to allow students to self-correct and gain confidence in the mental imaging and comprehension process. Mental movie creators in a group can support each other when a member struggles with deciding on squares for certain information. These practices support the use of authentic critical thinking language in a natural peer-peer support setting. As needed, teachers model and prompt academic oral language structures for such academic dialog. Examples of such language support could be“ I see the person/action. Therefore I touch a square for the person/action.” or “What do you see in your head?... Then put a square down for that.” As each group member retells the sentence while touching squares, the other members listen and double-check or silently rehearse their retelling. Each group member gets a turn to retell the sentence. To foster critical, self-reflective thinking, reasons for challenges and successes in this process are briefly discussed after all students have completed the sentence comprehension task. In this practice, as with all other practice phases, teachers rotate from group to group, provide support as needed, and take notes on their check charts (see Figure 2). Phase 3: Mental Imaging and Verbalizing with Single Paragraphs The next challenging MI&V activity with color-coded squares involves students comprehending and recalling information from short paragraphs. These can first consist of two-three sentences and gradually increase to five-six sentences. Paragraphs can be taken from existing curriculum materials, electronic support materials (i.e., www.readworks.org), or be briefly created by teachers using unit content, vocabulary, and sentence structures. The author’s experience is that such paragraphs can be written in no more than five minutes. Those interested in using commercially created reading materials may want to consider the Imagine That! text resources on the Gander Publisher’s website. Paragraphs can vary in challenge depending on student needs and skills by displaying more or less detail and varying sentence complexities. Figure 4 shows a differentiated text passage with the same/similar content. It demonstrates the placement of colored squares per mental image. The MSML paragraph comprehension practice procedures in this phase are the same as those described in Phase 2. At this point, though, students are expected to associate the content of one sentence with one square. One person per group pulls a card with the passage without showing it to peers. This person reads the passage aloud as often as needed for peers to associate essential information from the paragraph with individual colored squares. Listeners place one colored square per essential, mentally imaged piece of information in the proper sequence. When retelling the

each group table, those pictures can rotate to another table, so students continue to practice mental imaging and verbalizing the same content. For a sample modeling of mental imaging and verbalizing practices with an image, see Schneider (2020a). Phase 2: Mental Imaging and Verbalizing with Single Sentences The next, more challenging MI &V activity has students visualize and retell what they picture based on hearing a sentence read to them by a peer or teacher. Sentence content and complexity need to match students’ background knowledge and comprehension skills. For small group practice, one person per group receives a sentence in an envelope they read to the group without showing it to them. To assist listeners’ visualization skills of the content in the sentence they hear read to them, they receive a small, clear plastic bag or envelope with three-five differently colored squares made of strong construction paper or felt. They are to place one square at a time in front of them for each important piece of information they hear in the sentence and associate the colored square with the mental image for that piece of information. Listeners in a group can work either individually or in pairs. Pairing a student with poorer comprehension skills with a student with higher comprehension skills allows for naturally occurring reflective dialog. It does not matter which color square students use for which piece of information. The distinctly different colors help students associate the different pieces of information with specific mental images. These squares engage students in a concrete, kinesthetic-tactile, and visual way to identify, visualize and memorize essential information in the sentence they hear. Subsequently, the squares assist students in picturing and recalling the sentence’s details when retelling the sentence content in their own words. When retelling, students touch each of the colored squares associated with specific information in the sentence initially read to them. The sentence reader repeats the sentence several times so listeners can repeatedly practice and double-check the information for each square before finally retelling what they heard. This repeated multisensory ‘move-touch-picture-speak’ activity helps students anchor specific content images with the colored squares they touch. At the start, selected sentences can be basic. For instance, in the sentence“ Cats, elephants and whales are all mammals,” students touch one square when first hearing and later restating“ cats.” They touch a second square when hearing and later saying“ elephants,” and they touch the third square when first hearing and later saying “and whales.” As listeners or re-tellers, students touch the fourth square when hearing or later saying, “are all mammals.” Gradually, the degree of sentence complexity and image detail can make the comprehension and verbalization task more demanding. For instance, a coordinate sentence that uses or, and, or but to connect two independent sentences as in It could have snowed but it rained instead is less challenging to visualize, comprehend, and verbalize than the following subordinate sentence. For students to retell the sentence“ When you have a fever, youmust stay home because you do not want to infect other people at school,” they touch one color square when hearing or retelling“ When you have a fever, ”

Literacy Matters Reading Matters

| 38 | Literacy Matters | Volume 21 • Winter 2021

CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS