When you think about the characters from your favourite books, what are the first things that come to mind? Their facial features? The city in which they live? What about the way they sound or what clothes they wear?

You might be accustomed to using mental imagery while reading, but that's not always the case for young children. Mental imagery is a learned skill that can be developed as little ones become active readers, and it's important for several reasons. Imagining visuals while reading helps build comprehension skills, communication skills, and memory retention. But it also helps your kids fully immerse themselves creatively into different stories - keeping them entertained. 

Follow along to learn more about what visualization is and why it's worthwhile to teach your child this reading strategy.

Why Using Mental Imagery While Reading is Helpful

Using mental imagery while reading is also known as visualizing. Visualizing refers to the act of creating images in our minds based on the text that's being read or heard. When kids visualize as they read, they strengthen their reading comprehension skills and have a richer reading experience overall.

Visualizing helps children develop an even stronger understanding of a story. To make the most of visualizing, readers should ideally use all of their senses, including sight, smell, taste, sound, and touch. 

If you'd like to explain visualization to your child, here's one simple way to do it. Describe this concept as creating a movie or picture in their mind - so as your child is reading a book, they can visualize the characters, settings, and events in all aspects.

Who Benefits from Using Mental Imagery?

Children who have a bit of trouble comprehending sentences or paragraphs while reading can benefit from using mental imagery.

Before you help your child develop their visualizing skills, find out if they are struggling with focusing on the words or following along with a story. Do they repeatedly ask questions that have been answered? Do they find it hard to understand cause and effect? These are just a few signs that your child may have some trouble processing language.

Children can learn visualization in elementary school or even earlier. A great way to ease your child into visualizing is through the use of kids' coloring books. Being able to identify colors is an important marker in a child's cognitive process. When children are able to identify colors, this creates a cognitive link between visual clues and words. Strengthening this connection is incredibly beneficial when it comes to using mental imagery while reading. 

How to Develop Your Child's Visualization Skills

Now that we know the benefits of visualizing while reading, let's talk about how to start using it during storytime. Below are just a few strategies that can help you enhance your child's visualization skills.  

Ask your child to draw something like an animal, a house, or a landscape. Rather than being specific about how it should look, encourage them to use their imagination to complete their drawing. Share and compare your own drawings when you've both finished!

Read an excerpt aloud from a story and ask your child to draw what is happening in that particular scene. Drawing what they hear helps your child understand the concept of visualization. After reading an excerpt, you can also ask them what they might smell, what they would feel, or what they might hear if they were in the scene themselves. 

Sharpen Your Child's Visualization Skills

Once your child has shown that they understand the concept of visualization, make an effort to maintain that skill by reading and completing activities with them. Explore the huge variety of kids' coloring books out there to help enhance your child's creativity and reading comprehension.

By starting at a young age, you'll foster a love of reading, which strengthens creativity and improves memory, communication skills, and vocabulary.