Visualizing is one of my very favorite skills to teach little readers. Why? It’s a powerful skill that is used throughout life and really helps with reading and listening comprehension. Plus, it just leads to some fun lesson. Visualizing was a specific comprehension skill that I taught in first grade, but even younger kids can practice it!

What is visualizing?

Visualizing just means creating a visual picture in your head based on the words you read or hear. It’s like making a little movie in your head. This skill is very important when listening to stories (that may not have a ton of picture support) or even just listening to other people.

Here is an example of an anchor chart that shows visualizing!

My students also loved using this giant thinking bubble. Just draw a thought bubble onto poster board and cut out the largest part. Laminate the poster board and students can hold it up to their faces when they share their thoughts with the class. They can use the sentence stem: I visualize…

Using Poetry to Teach Visualizing

Poetry is one of my very favorite tools for teaching visualizing! There are so many fun poems that have some really fun visuals for little ones to imagine! Just print this response sheet and read aloud eight poems over the course of a few days. It’s free and the link will give you instant access!

As you read each poem, children can draw a picture of what they visualize in the boxes on the response sheet. I love using poems by my favorite poet and from this book, but any poems that you love are great! After everyone has completed their visualizing, share the pictures!

Here is one of my favorite poems to use. It’s all over the internet, but I haven’t been able to find the original source.

Rainbow Hair
Rainbow purple,
Rainbow blue,
Rainbow green and yellow too.
Rainbow orange,
Rainbow red
Rainbow colors on my head.
Colors, colors everywhere.
I like rainbows in my hair!

Want to adapt this for virtual learning? EASY! Record yourself reading the poems and make them into QR codes or add your videos to a Google Classroom!

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