Generally speaking، lexical items that enter our minds through reading a text
commonly leave us with pictures، sounds، echoes، and feelings in the mind.
While the ability to produce images in the mind in the process of reading
appears to be vital for greater comprehension and recall of texts، research has
indicated that many poor readers seemingly do not visualize as they read. On
the contrary، those readers who do typically visualize achieve greater
comprehension and recall (see Tomlinson، 1997). In this study، in line with
Wittrock’s ‘generative learning theory’ (e.g.، 1992)، two fairly homogeneous
groups of EFL undergraduates (N=50)، after taking a reading comprehension
test to ensure that their reading comprehension differences are not significant،
were randomly assigned to attend a short-story course in two different
sections—one serving as the experimental and the other as the control group،
both studying the same short stories، and both being taught by the researcher as
their instructor of the course. The experimental group was instructed how to
form pictures in the mind—i.e.، how to visualize—before reading، while
reading، and after reading a short story، for example، by being requested to
draw pictures of the characters، scenes، or settings in the story as they perceived
them. The control group، however، did not receive any training with respect to
imagery production and was not told to practice visualization before، while، or
after reading the same texts as the experimental group did. The results of a
reading comprehension test on the short stories that had been discussed in both
indicated that the “visualizers” significantly outperformed the “non-visualizers”، i.e.، the control group، on both tests.
