The rapidity of visualization can be greatly increased by effort and training. There is great value in this ability, and it can be attained by shortening the interval during which the object or exercise is visible to the eye.
After the children have learned to form a definite, accurate picture, try to shorten the time in which they see the objects. Strive until they can take in the whole at a glance. The detail will continue to develop after the eyes are closed. In the Letter and Number Games gradually shorten the time given until they can reproduce the entire row at a glance. Such effort will quicken the action of the brain area of sight.
The story is told of a woman who so developed this ability that she could secure a picture of the page of a letter in one glance and read it from the visual image. She became a well-known government agent in a foreign country, an internationally known spy.
All of the exercise given for the development of the sense of sight can be used for visualization and later for observation. These two important faculties are closely related to each other and both dependent upon the eye. Later on you will see that the most used of all the faculties—Memory—is in turn largely dependent upon all three.
Training of Younger Children
Up to eight years of age the child should be trained principally in the use of his senses and in making clear mind's eye pictures. The parent should have the definite aim in mind of increasing the child's stock of knowledge, and of the later value of these efforts. Show him everything you can, and take time to explain. Things are new to the child, even though they are very common to you. This is the age when he acquires his knowledge of things without being so much interested in their relationship to each other.
A great deal which is explained to children is forgotten, because they did not sense it—that is, they do not impress it upon the mind by many and varied sense impressions. Simply to hear the answer to the question is not sufficient. You can tell a child what a rectangle is, but he is very apt to forget. If, after you have explained a rectangle to the child, you have him go around the room and find all the rectangles that he can—such as windows, doors, books, etc., and then draw different sizes of them, he will never forget.