Making movies in their mind

Andrew Edwards

Picture a giant Saguaro cactus, bristling with needles in an arid

Arizona desert.

For children developing reading skills, translating words into

images can help students improve their understanding of what they

read.

Using a reading intervention program called Language!, Kathy

Dryden, speech and language specialist at Sun View Elementary School,

meets with children who need to improve their reading skills and

works to jump-start their imaginations

What Dryden tries to do is to help the students transform words

into panoramic pictures they can see with the mind’s eye. The idea is

like a filmmaker visualizing a shot based on a script.

“They’re actually making a movie in their head,” Dryden said.

With a mixed group of fourth- and fifth-graders, Dryden and the

junior moviemakers -- she calls them “directors,” -- put together an

imaginary picture based descriptions of a Saguaro cactus.

“I see a green cactus, with like, spikes, and it’s tall,”

11-year-old Ania Miercwa said.

Ania was one of the first young directors to describe her vision

to the rest of the class. The other children, working on prompts from

Dryden, elaborated the imaginary scene with more details.

Thinking of what they would expect to find in a Southwestern

desert, the students added items like rocks, bones and animals to the

picture.

“A snake could live inside a hole,” 11-year-old Ricky Huertero

said.

With the scene set, the movie needed some action. Dryden asked the

children to picture what would happen if a rare rainstorm hit the

desert.

Learning that a cactus expands to soak rainwater like a sponge,

10-year-old Anthony Quijano stretched out his arms to show how the

cactus would get fat with water.

“I see rabbits going, like, in a tunnel,” Anthony said.

After the rain, the class concluded their imaginary movie by

talking about what the animals would do after the rain.

“I see after the storm’s over, when everything’s dried up, I see

all the animals going into the cactus to get some water out of it,”

11-year-old Justin Van Winkle said.

Dryden compared the lesson to an intensive-care unit for children

needing a helping hand with reading skills.

“We’ve constructed a huge safety net for kids who are at risk,”

she said.