By Janel Shicor, M.A, CCC-SLP

Children love poetry. It makes them laugh, think and wonder. It's fun. Therefore, poetry is a great way to make learning fun. I wrote these poems for elementary school-aged children to have an enjoyable way to practice visualization skills. When practice time is enjoyable, children become willing participants. Visualization skills are imperative for good comprehension, memory, test-taking, writing and social skills. I often share with my clients that visualization skills are the key to academic success.

If one cannot remember what is heard or read, life will be difficult. The brain remembers by converting what is read or heard to pictures in the mind's eye. This important skill must be taught if a student doesn't visualize, or doesn't visualize consistently. My clients learn how to work with their children by watching me. They learn by seeing how I picture, as I explain concepts to their children. Reading the poems in this book is like watching me in the clinic setting. I have written out how I would visualize each phrase in detail. Visualization training is not a right/wrong or black/white process. If you state the word 'cat' to a room of 75 people, all of them would see a different cat in their mind's eye – and all of them would be right! Pictures must change and become more specific, however, when more information is received. Although for some sentences or phrases, there is not one best way to picture them.

Sometimes one must be creative within the picturing process; especially with information that is more abstract rather than concrete. A concrete sentence would be one such as, "The cow walked across the road." Although there are a number of different colors, and to a lesser degree different sizes in regard to cows, it is rather easy to picture a cow. It is also easy to picture the cow walking across a road. However, sentences such as, "Water can mean many things to many people," or "The cat is one of nature's most amazing animals" are more abstract. These sentences are not quite as easy to picture, and require some thought. The purpose of this book is to reduce the learning curve in regard to training your child to picture. The information about how to train your child to visualize is specifically written out for you within the context of the 35 poems contained in this book. In the midst of giggles and thought that poetry provokes, your child can learn to picture. You will have the visualizations written out the way I would share them with your child, if he or she were sitting in my office.

Many clients over the years have shared with me that hearing my pictures was invaluable for them in the learning process, because it gave them a guideline to follow. If you don't know how to picture, the process can be difficult. With the map this book provides, the process is much easier. After reading and using this book, it will be much easier to use other materials in the future, as you will have learned the basic steps. And more importantly, you and your child will both have fun as you learn this invaluable skill.

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