Week 2 - Wilhelm Ch. 5

Chapter Five - Reading is Seeing

Wilhelm begins the chapter with a story and explaining that teachers deal with 30 students in almost every class, and they have to face each students individual needs. They need to be organized, enthusiastic about their subject and prepared for what the day might bring.

This chapter supplies another case study on three students, Tommy, Walter, and Kae. Tommy and Walter are LD students and Kae is an ESL student.

On page 117 Wilhelm writes, "It has been demonstrated that visual imaging encourages students to access and apply their prior knowledge as they read, increases comprehension, and improves the ability to predict, infer, and remember what has been read." He explains that after talking with the three students that none of them saw anything when they read a text, and therefore couldn't actually think about what they had experienced in the text.

On page 122 Wilhelm offers three activities to be used with visual arts; Symbolic Story Representations, Visual Protocols, and Reading Illustrated Books. All three are great methods to get student to visualize while reading. I really like SSR's because it allows the student to create what they are seeing, without conforming to what they are told they should be seeing, and using picture books helps students see the story as a whole. He continues with more activities on page 124; Illustrating Books, Picture Mapping, and Collages.

I enjoyed the section on Relating to Characters because often times when reading I try to place myself in a situation, or a location that the characters are in. I believe it is one of the best ways to picture the text, and try to understand the emotions of the characters.