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Students will use the strategy of visualizing to better comprehend text.

Students should be able to make text-to-self connections; and they should be able to make guesses and predictions related to a story.

• Picture book -- The Vegetables Go To Bed by Christopher King
  
• Poem -- One Inch Tall by Shel Silverstein
  
• Paper and crayons/colored pencils
  
• White board and markers

Whole Group:
1. Prepare white board: Good Readers Visualize.
   
2. What does visualize mean?
   • Making pictures in your head
     
   • Taking snapshots
3. How do we visualize?
   • By making connections
     
   • Using what we already know; drawing upon our background knowledge and experiences
4. Are everyone's pictures the same?
   • No -- because we all have different background knowledge and experiences
5. Demonstrate this point -- give students a word (i.e., flower) and have 2 students come up to the white board and draw what they picture in their head. Point out that each student's drawing was different. Repeat this with a few different words -- bed, ice cream, tree, home
   
6. Ask students to close their eyes and visualize while you read The Vegetables Go To Bed, by Christopher King Do not show the pictures.

Practice:
• Individual Activity:
  Give each student a piece of white paper to draw on. Students will use colored pencils or crayons. Ask them to draw something they visualized from the book.
• Whole Group Share:
  Regroup in a circle on the rug and have each student present their visualization illustration. Point out how each is different from another because how/what we visualize is based not just on what we all heard together, but also on our previous knowledge and past experiences. For example, one student might draw a bunkbed while another student might draw a regular bed.

Wrap-up:
Review what visualizing means and how it helps us to better understand/comprehend a story.

Follow-up:
• Reread The Vegetables Go To Bed and share the illustrator's illustrations. Compare with what students drew.
  
• Reinforce visualization strategy by doing similar lesson with a different genre (poetry). Read Shel Silverstein's Poem -- One Inch Tall. Ask students to illustrate what they visualize and share.

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