Picture books and strategies to develop visualization skills in young learners and reluctant readers

Visualization is the cognitive process in which images are retrieved from memory without retinal input and based on readers’ perception, experiences, and background knowledge (Salas et al., 2021). Skilled readers create images while reading while others may struggle. The purpose of this paper is to introduce practitioners to five picture books that lend themselves to teaching visualization. Each book is paired with a specific instructional strategy to introduce the skill, grades first to third grade, or to utilize with struggling, reluctant readers.