Visualizing Strategy Using The Salamander Room Behavioral Objective: The fourth grade learner will create sensory

images to visualize the text as the teacher reads aloud from The Salamander Room. Reading Standard R4.A.1.3.1: Make inferences and/or draw conclusions based on information from text. Materials: Book o Mazer, A. (1991) The Salamander Room. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knope, Inc. Two blank sheets of paper per student One pencil for each student

Procedure: Anticipatory Set: What do you think the term visualizing means? The teacher will accept student responses. Wow, you are some great thinkers! When we visualize, we make pictures in our minds as we read. As we read, we use our imaginations, the authors text and our own background knowledge to create pictures of what we read in our minds. Visualizing is a comprehension strategy that will help us all become better readers. Today we are going to use visualization as a strategy as I read a story aloud to you. Activity: Introduction: Today I will teach you about the visualizing strategy. Visualizing is when readers create pictures or movies in their minds, based on the text they read. Today we will use visualizing to help us create images in our minds as I read the story, The Salamander Room, aloud to you. Before we get started with our story, lets first practice visualizing some sentence in our minds.

Modeling: Im going to read a descriptive sentence aloud to you. Everyone, please close your eyes. I want you to really think about the words as I read this sentence aloud. As I read, try to picture what I am reading to you in your mind. I will also create a picture in my mind with the words I say. Does everyone understand? The teacher reads the following sentence aloud. The plump, orange cat meowed loudly to be fed. Next the teacher will discuss the mental picture she visualized in her mind and draw it for students on the board. She will ask the following questions and think aloud while drawing the cat on the board. What did the cat look like? (Possible responses: orange, plump, fat etc.) What did you hear when I read the sentence? (Cat meowing) Why was the cat meowing? (It wanted to be fed). Did you picture anything else as I read the sentence? I pictured the cats empty food dish because the sentence let me know that the cat was meowing to be fed. Guided Practice: Now its your turn. Im going to read another sentence aloud and I want you to picture what Im reading in your mind. Teacher reads sentence. The brown and green turtle slowly crossed the road, while drivers waited patiently in their cars. Does everyone have a picture in his or her mind? What do you see? What do you hear? Now on your piece of paper take a few minutes to sketch the sentence I read as you pictured it in your mind. This is not an art project, just a quick sketch. The teacher will allow students to sketch for 3 minutes. Now I would like you to turn and share with your partner your sketch. While students share their sketches the teacher will circulate and observe students sharing their sketches. After a few minutes the teacher will bring the class back together to elicit conversation about their sketches. What did you notice about your sketch, when compared to your partners? Did your drawings look the same? Teacher will listen to students responses. Because all of us have different background knowledge, we will naturally visualize things differently in our minds. However, our visions do need to match the text. Since we all listened to the same sentence, our pictures should be somewhat similar. Our imaginations however make our pictures unique. Visualization helps bring the stories we read to life. Visualization makes reading more enjoyable and exciting! Now we are going to practice using the visualizing strategy with The Salamander Room, a story that Im going to read aloud to you.

Independent Practice: Now that weve practiced visualizing together, Id like all of you to practice applying the visualizing strategy to a story that Im going to read to you. Before we get started, please take your second piece of paper and fold it in half, and then in half once more so that you have four equal sections. Teacher will model folding paper into quarters for students. You will be using these four corners to sketch pictures as you visualize them during certain parts of the story. Ill let you know when you will need to stop an d sketch. Next the teacher will introduce the book, The Salamander Room. Who can tell me what a salamander is? Teacher listens to students responses. A salamander is lizard like creature that is usually bright in color. In this story a boy finds a salamander and were going to read to find out his plans for keeping the salamander in his room. The teacher will read The Salamander Room out loud. The teacher will not share pictures from the book, as she wants students to create their own visualizations from the text. The teacher will remind students to use all of their senses when visualizing. What do you see? What do you hear? At the following points in the story, the teacher will stop and ask students to sketch the picture they created in their mind as she read. I will make a salamander bed for him to sleep in. I will carpet my room with shiny wet leaves and water them so he can slide around and play. I will bring trees for the birds to roost in, and make ponds for the frogs. We can lift off the ceiling. They will sail out in the sky, but they will come back to my room when it is time for dinner because they will know that the biggest, juiciest insects are there.

As students draw their sketches, the teacher will circulate and observe students working. Careful observation will allow the teacher to determine if students drawings match what the author states in the text. Differentiation: The teacher will pull students who struggle with the visualizing strategy into a small group. In the small group the teacher would model visualizing some of the sentences from the story. Gifted students would be given a more challenging text to practice the visualizing strategy with. Rather than draw pictures, gifted students could use writing to describe the pictures they created in their minds as they read.

Closure: The teacher will elicit discussion by asking students the following questions. What did you enjoy most about using the visualizing strategy? Did you find visualizing hard? Why or why not? Did you find visualizing easy? Why or why not? How can we use this strategy as we read?

The teacher will listen to students responses. I hope everyone can see the value in visualizing what we read. Visualization brings the texts you read to life, making our readings more interesting and easier to understand. Assessment: Formative: The teacher will assess students through observation. Do students visualizations match the text, or do their drawings include items not in the text? Summative: The teacher will evaluate the students responses to the closure questions. The teacher will also examine their sketches following the four quotes from the book to gauge if students are using the visualizing strategy correctly. Reflection: