TEACHING LISTENING STRATEGIES AND VISUALIZATION

TECHNIQUES

VELTI ARNILA-11414203027-PBI 6 C

Comprehension is a fundamental skill, and as such, time should be devoted to

teaching children to comprehend. One particular comprehension strategy which has
produced great improvements in comprehension levels is visualization. This strategy
refers to the act of a reader creating pictures in their mind based on information they
read or hear.

The act of listening is also an essential skill. Directly linked to school success,
listening impacts greatly on ones ability to read, write, speak and reason. Although
listening is the first language skill to develop early in life, it is not an instinctive skill.
Listening is a competence which also must be taught.

The act of listening is an integral part of society, at times a means of survival.

In the past, communities would gather and pass on information verbally through oral
story telling. As the elder told stories, the rest of the community listened, visualizing
what they heard. Speaker and listener would collaboratively partake in this linguistic
form of communication. Listening was woven into daily routine, ritual and
celebration

Comprehension is a process of reading. Successful comprehension relies on the

readers motivation to make sense of the text they read, connecting ideas to their prior
knowledge. Readers usually comprehend at the sentence level, however, in a bid to
decode the text, a reader may occasionally descend to the word level. Comprehension
can occur during the act of reading or after the act itself, as the reader reflects on what

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theyve read. Reading comprehension or lack there of, has been of foremost concern
for a number of years.

As comprehension is such a fundamental skill, a great deal of time should be

devoted to actually teaching children to comprehend. It is imperative to instruct
children how to understand and make meaning of what they read.

Comprehension is a complex and demanding task, requiring the reader to

possess a repertoire of strategies. Children must be taught how to analyze
grammatical conventions. They must be taught how to interpret sentence
propositions. They must be taught how to use meaning, syntax and visual cues to
their advantage. Comprehension strategies therefore must be explicitly taught

Teachers must do more than simply teach comprehension strategies. The

teacher must provide a name for the strategy being taught and identify when and how
the strategy should be used. The teacher must also accurately model the strategy
providing a verbal think-aloud dialogue so the students better understand the process.
Finally, the teacher must provide opportunities for the students to practice using the
strategy, within a secure group environment, ideally with a partner initially and then
finally independently.

One particular comprehension strategy which has produced great improvements

in comprehension levels is visualization. The visualizing strategy refers to the act of a
reader creating pictures in their mind based on information they read or hear. A
readers inability to visualize is in fact a common obstruction of comprehension
(Parsons, 2006).

Guerrero (2003) further supports the belief that visualization is indeed a

powerful tool in improving levels of comprehension and recall. Visualizing is one
strategy which allows the passive listener to be more actively involved in the text.