Reading Strategy: Visualize

When you visualize, you create pictures in your mind. Sensory images help you visualize what you read using sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.

Reading Strategy Visualize
    How to Use Sensory Images

  • 1. As you read, look for words that describe how things look, sound, smell, taste, and feel.

  • 2. Use your own experiences to make these sensory images come alive. (You can see the bright sun. You can feel its heat.)

  • 3. Put these sensory images together to visualize what is happening. By imagining what things are like, you can understand the text better.

Strategy in Action

Here’s how one student used a chart to track how sensory images helped him visualize the story.

Look Into the Text

She wanted something to remember him by, so she snuck down to the silent palace, near the River of Perfumes, and plucked a seed from a lotus pod that rattled in the imperial garden. She hid the seed in a special place under the family altar, wrapped in a piece of silk from the ao dai she wore that day. Whenever she felt sad or lonely, she took out the seed and thought of the brave young emperor.

When I Read …I Imagine …
silent palacean empty house at night
sad or lonelythe day my brother left for college

Practice Together

Make a chart like the one above. Then reread the passage. Follow the steps in the How-To box and look for words that describe how something looks, sounds, tastes, smells, or feels. What do you imagine? Add it to your chart.