Comprehension skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses metacognitive skills to both develop and deepen comprehension of increasingly complex texts.
English Language Arts and Reading.8.5.D
The student is expected to
create mental images to deepen understanding;
Knowledge and Skills Statement
Demonstrated Proficiency of ELA.8.5.D
Read a short text to students but do not allow them to see the book cover. Have students create a book jacket that includes a title and visual representation of the book.
Provide students with an informational text with a blank box next to the text. Task students with creating a visual that represents ideas from the text.
Assess the relevance of the image to the ideas in the text.
Note:
If needed, provide a caption for the image to support students.
Further Explanation
This assessment requires students to demonstrate a deeper understanding of a text through discussion and illustration of the mental images they create while reading. Being able to create accurate mental images is a strong indicator that students understand what they are reading.
Supporting Information for ELA.8.5.D
Research
1. Boerma, I. E., Mole, S. E., & Jolles, J. (2016). Reading pictures for story comprehension requires mental imagery skills. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1630. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01630
Summary: In this study, researchers examined the influence of mental imagery on the reading comprehension of 150 fifth graders. The study was comprised of two control groups and one experimental group. The two control groups used either the full chapter with words only or with images only. The experimental group read a chapter from a book that alternated text blocks followed by one to two pages of images. The findings revealed that students with higher mental imagery skills outperformed those students with lower mental imagery skills. This suggests that texts and images should be integrated in order to increase students' reading comprehension.
2. De Koning, B. B., & van der Schoot, M. (2013). Becoming part of the story!: Refueling the interest in visualization strategies for reading comprehension. Educational Psychology Review, 25, 261–287. doi:10.1007/s10648-013-9222-6
Summary: This article includes different ways to use visualization to encourage readers to build their own visual representations of text. The authors discuss strategies considered best practices. Multiple visualization strategies are included.
3. Davidson, M., & Berninger, V. (2016). Informative, compare and contrast, and persuasive essay composing of fifth and seventh graders: Not all essay writing is the same. Journal of Psychoeducation, 34(4), 311–321. doi:10.1177/0734282915604977
Summary: Middle schools students write three genres using background knowledge and graphic illustrations to enhance mental images and oral reading (listening comprehension). The results of the study suggest that students exhibited considerable difference between the genre, writing quality, organizational skills, and length. The study is an overview of approaches that support students to write in multiple genres. Importance is placed on assessing genres.