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Mrs. Ball's fourth-grade class celebrated their talent the week of Dec. 15 with an art show. Students have been learning the strategy of visualizing while reading. Original works of art included pictures the students created from the books 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas' by John Boyne and 'The Miraculous Journey of Edward Toulane' by Kate DiCamillo. The students are learning the importance of visualizing while reading. Reading expert and author of 'Strategies That Work', Stephanie Harvey, tells us this about visualizing: 'When we visualize while reading, we are, in fact, inferring - but with mental images. Visualizing and inferring are first cousins. When readers visualize they create pictures in their minds that enhance understanding and that belong to us, and no one else. As more and more books are churned into movies, we are not surprised that most people prefer the book over the movie, young students included. One problem inherent in transforming text to film is that Hollywood routinely takes a 450-page novel and converts it into a 160-page script. Not surprisingly, depth and texture of the text suffer.' Pictured are Noah and Erin Collier with Noah's picture 'Queen Mary.'
