Those with poor comprehension may be good readers, but they do not remember what they have read. They must read a text over and over to answer questions about it. They may remember some details but miss the big picture. They generally are not able to answer the higher level questions about the text such as, “What is the main idea?” or “What do you think happens next?”

The problem is that they don’t picture the information as they read, or they are not focused on the story because they have too many other pictures in their head. We can teach them how to visualize as they read and organize their pictures in order to retrieve them for future use.

The Visualize and Verbalize program, created by Nancy Bell, is what we use with our students who struggle with poor comprehension. Just having these students practice reading and answering questions is not the solution. This will just frustrate them all the more. They need to be taught a new way of reading, and we can give them what they need to raise their comprehension.