Amy Snyder
November 2, 2010
REED 663: Text Set
Enhancing Comprehension through Visualization
Introduction
The following books can be used to teach students how to visualize and connect to text on a
deeper level. The illustrations and text will appeal to students at various grade levels, from
Pre-Kindergarten to High School. The illustrations found within this text set will provide all
students with vivid images to provoke thoughts and personal connections. This text set can be
used as classroom read-alouds or can be read by students with the corresponding reading ability.
The foci of the books are on the hardships and dreams of diverse cultures and ethnicities.
Maryland VSC Standard Alignment
Pre-Kindergarten through Second Grade
Standard 3.0 Comprehension of Literary Text: Students will read, comprehend, interpret,
analyze, and evaluate literary texts.
1. Develop comprehension skills by reading a variety of self-selected and assigned
literary texts
a. Listen to, read and discuss a variety of literary texts representing diverse cultures,
perspectives, and ethnicities
b. Listen to, read, and discuss a variety of different types of fictional literary texts,
such as plays, poems, stories (folktales, fairy tales, fantasy, realistic fiction, and
historical fiction)
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2. Use text features to facilitate understanding of literary text
b. Identify and explain how text features, such as illustrations, punctuation, and print
features, contribute to meaning
6. Determine the important ideas and messages in literary text
d. Identify personal connections to the text
Third Grade through Eighth Grade
Standard 2.0 Comprehension of Informational Text: Students will read, comprehend,
interpret, analyze, and evaluate informational text.
2. Identify and use text features to facilitate understanding of informational texts
b. Use graphic aids such as illustrations and pictures, photographs, drawings,
sketches, cartoons, maps, and other graphic aids encountered in informational
texts
Standard 3.0 Comprehension of Literary Text: Students will read, comprehend, interpret,
analyze, and evaluate literary text
1. Develop and apply comprehension skills by reading a variety of self-selected and
assigned literary texts including print and non-print
a. Listen to critically, read, and discuss a variety of literary texts representing diverse
cultures, perspectives, ethnicities, and time periods
b. Listen to critically, read, and discuss a variety of literary forms and genres
2. Analyze text features to facilitate understanding of literary texts
a.
Identify and explain how graphic aids such as pictures and illustrations,
punctuation, print features contribute to meaning
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Book #1
Title: Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale
Author: John Steptoe
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 0688040454
Fiction/Non-Fiction: Fiction
Reading Level: 5.2
Cultural Considerations: Discuss the characters’ names and the meanings of each, these can be
found on the dedication page within the book. Activate prior knowledge by discussing the
African culture and the culture of your students.
Summary: This is an African folktale similar to Cinderella. The story is about two daughters
that have extremely different personalities. Throughout the story the reader is exposed to
situations where the daughters make different choices, which ultimately leads the prince to
choose the daughter who is helpful and kind.
Scaffold of Strategy: The teacher will read this story aloud. The detailed text within the story
lends itself to vivid imagery development. The illustrations will also provide readers with
additional images to internalize. The focus for this book would be to help students develop
images that are symbolic. Discussion around how different images within the story are symbolic
is necessary. Students can then develop a personal symbol or image that represents their own
lives on an index card or blank sheet of paper.
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Book #2
Title: The Orphan Boy
Author: Tolowa M. Mollel
Publisher: Clarion Books
ISBN: 0899199852
Fiction/Non-Fiction: Fiction
Reading Level: 5.5
Cultural Considerations: Discuss the daily lives of Africans who live in small villages. Discuss
how there are no stores to by milk or water from and about the chores that need to be done for
everyone to survive.
Summary: This is a story about a young orphan boy who has magical powers that help an old
man complete his daily chores. The Orphan explains to the old man that the magical powers are
his secret and his secret alone. This was not acceptable for the old man, so he followed the
Orphan and discovered what the secret was, which lead to distrust. The Orphan boy vanished
into the sky and became a star.
Scaffold of Strategy: The teacher will read this story aloud. Throughout the story there is
descriptive language which will help students learn to visualize. Students can understand the
importance of creating images in their heads by drawing a picture to represent the text. The
teacher should model one picture and then allow students to create an image on their own. The
teacher should explain, out loud to the students, why certain images are being added to the
illustration.
Use the following text from the story:
Teacher image – “Waiting for him in his favourite bowl was steaming hot tea”
Student image – “His cattle were fatter and rounder than he had ever seen them.”
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Book #3
Title: The Girl Who Spun Gold
Author: Virginia Hamilton
Publisher: The Blue Sky Press
ISBN: 0590473786
Fiction/Non-Fiction: Fiction
Reading Level: 4.4
Cultural Considerations: Discuss the importance of fine linens and thread for royalty. Show
pictures of these items to the students.
Summary: This story is about a young woman who is thought to be able to turn wool into gold.
There is an ugly little man who comes to her and magically changes the wool into gold for her,
but she must guess his name by the third night or the little man will take her and make her small
and ugly just like him. She guesses the man’s name because she overhears him singing to
himself.
Scaffold of Strategy: The teacher will read this story aloud and then, as a class, create a list of
characteristics of the little man by using specific details from the story. From this list, students
can create an actual model from clay of the little man. Students need to be encouraged to focus
on creating details to portray the ugliness of the little man. Allow enough time for the students to
fully develop a replica. Additional objects can be created out of clay to add details, such as balls
of gold thread or a padlock. These props can then be used to assist the students as they retell the
story’s details.
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Book #4
Title: Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears
Author: Verna Aardema
Publisher: Puffin Pied Piper
ISBN: 0140549056
Fiction/Non-Fiction: Fiction
Reading Level: 4.2
Cultural Considerations: Discuss the different types of animals, mammals, and insects that are
found in Africa and compare these to what is found near your students’ homes. Show students
pictures of these things.
Summary: This story is about a mosquito who tells a lie that escalates into a series of events that
leads to an owlet dying. The mother owl is so upset that she does not “call the sun” to rise, so
everything remains dark. The King Lion listens to the characters’ stories and decides to punish
the mosquito, who is nowhere to be found.
Scaffold of Strategy: The teacher will read this story aloud. Students will then create a mobile
to represent the animals, mammals, and insect within the story. On index cards students will
draw an iguana with sticks in his ears, a mosquito, a python, a rabbit, a crow, a monkey, an owl
with owlets, and a smashed mosquito. The teacher needs to help students develop a detailed
picture to represent the characters in the story. For the smashed mosquito, encourage students to
close their eyes and picture a time when they have smashed an insect. Students should duplicate
this image by drawing it on an index card. Attach index cards to a wire coat hanger with string or
fishing line.
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Book #5
Title: Two Bad Boys: A Very Old Cherokee Tale
Author: Gail E. Haley
Publisher: Dutton Children’s Books
ISBN: 0525453113
Fiction/Non-Fiction: Fiction
Reading Level: 5.3
Cultural Considerations: Discuss the Cherokee culture and how their culture, as well as ours,
teach children right from wrong as soon as they are born. Discuss the similarities and the
differences.
Summary: This story is about two young boys who cause a lot of mischief. Throughout the
story, one boy talks the other into doing things that are wrong, which hurts their families and
themselves.
Scaffold of Strategy: The teacher will read this story aloud. Students will then create two
images of themselves on index cards or blank paper. One image will be of themselves making
good decisions and the other will be an image of themselves making poor decisions. Students can
use a mirror or water, mixed with blue food coloring, to see their image to create detailed
likenesses. When both images are done, students can put each picture into a frame and label them
with titles.
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Book #6
Title: Anansi Goes Fishing
Author: Eric A. Kimmel
Publisher: Holiday House
ISBN: 082340918X
Fiction/Non-Fiction: Fiction
Reading Level: 4.1
Cultural Considerations: Discuss how people in Africa create nets to fish in local rivers.
Discuss the labor intensive process of catching fish to survive and provide for family members.
Discuss how some families cook meals over a fire and not in an oven. Show the students pictures
of people fishing with nets in a river.
Summary: This story is one of trickery. Anansi is known as a trickster and plots to trick Turtle
out of his fish. Turtle actually tricks Anansi into doing all of the work to catch the fish. Turtle
then tricks Anansi into letting him eat the entire fish. At the end of the story no one believes
Anansi, but he has learned how to spin spider webs.
Scaffold of Strategy: The teacher will read this story aloud. Students will then create a spider
web with yarn and a metal coat hanger. Stretch the coat hanger to make an oval shape and then
tie the yarn in the form of a spider web. Create a spider from black pompoms and pipe cleaners.
Attach the spider to the spider web. Have the students revisit the text and write each lie Turtle
told to Anansi on to individual index cards. Then attach these index cards to the spider web.
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Book #7
Title: The Rough Faced Girl
Author: Rafe Martin
Publisher: Puffin Books
ISBN: 0698116267
Fiction/Non-Fiction: Fiction
Reading Level: 5.5
Cultural Considerations: Discuss the culture of Native Americans, wigwams, moccasins,
beads, and buckskins. Show students pictures of these items before beginning the story.
Summary: This is a Native American version of Cinderella. The Rough Faced Girl has two
mean sisters that hurt her and want to marry the Invisible Being. These two sisters are not worthy
enough and are turned away. The Invisible Being sees the kind heart of the Rough Faced Girl
and they live happily ever after.
Scaffold of Strategy: The teacher will read this story aloud. Students will then create their own
pictures of the Invisible Being with paint and poster paper. The teacher will model how to create
a pencil sketch and then paint the picture. Students need to be encouraged to take their time and
focus on the details from the story. The two images should include the rainbow as the bow and
the stars as the runs on the sled.
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Book #8
Title: The People Could Fly
Author: Virginia Hamilton
Publisher: Borzoi Book
ISBN: 0394869257
Fiction/Non-Fiction: Fiction
Reading Level: 3.5
Cultural Considerations: Discuss the hardships and culture of African Americans in the past
and the present time.
Summary: The book contains a collection of short African American folktales. These folktales
focus on hope, slavery and the quest for freedom.
Scaffold of Strategy: Students are encouraged to independently read the folktales and create
symbolic illustrations of each. The sketches can be done independently or with a small group
over a period of time. The illustrations should be kept in a small diary or journal. Occasionally,
students should be encouraged to share their illustrations with the class, with peers or with the
teacher. Students should have an open discussion about the details within their own illustrations.
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Book #9
Title: Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the Making of a Black President
Author: Edward McClelland
Publisher: Bloomsbury Press
ISBN: 9781608196067
Fiction/Non-Fiction: Non-Fiction
Reading Level: 7.6
Cultural Considerations: Discuss the hardships African Americans have experienced and the
significance of being the first African American President of the United States of America.
Summary: This is a chapter book about the hardships Mr. Obama faced as he made his way
through various political offices and finally to the Presidency.
Scaffold of Strategy: Students will read this book independently. This book should be used to
generate discussions within a small group setting. The teacher should pull out details from the
chapters and explain the importance of developing mental images as a reader. As the book club
continues through the chapters, the teacher should encourage students to share their own images
as they are reading.
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Book #10
Title: What Obama Means for Our culture, Our Politics, Our Future
Author: Jabari Asim
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 9780061711336
Fiction/Non-Fiction: Non-Fiction
Reading Level: 6.8
Cultural Considerations: Discuss the hardships African Americans have experienced and the
significance of being the first African American President of the United States of America.
Summary: This chapter book discusses the impact President Obama has had on American
history. Throughout this book, references to pop-culture icons are discussed.
Scaffold of Strategy: A sketch book should be created as students independently read this book.
As the reader progresses through the chapters, sketches should be created so that the reader can
connect to the text on a deeper level. These sketches will help the reader to develop an
understanding of the links between pop-culture icons and President Obama.
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References:
Amazon.com (2010). Retrieved November 2, 2010, from www.amazon.com
Scholastic Inc. (n.d.). Teacher book wizard: Find children’s books by reading level, topic,
genre. Retrieved November 2, 2010, from
http://bookwizard.scholastic.com/tbw/homePage.do
School Improvement in Maryland (2010). Teaching and learning: Reading/English language arts.
Retrieved November 2, 2010, from http://mdk12.org/instruction/curriculum/reading/
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