Help the child to cultivate the habit of originality and not to be afraid of trying new ideas. Do not always suggest a picture, let him work and create one for himself.
Effort is the price of increased mental power—the result will be secured in no other way.
Make lists of groceries, errands, etc., for the child to practice with. If he has no need of using the Hitching Posts now, deliberately make the need, so that he can form this valuable habit.
The Mind's Eye and the Story
An excellent time for the development of the child is "story time." Have him use his imagination and make mind's eye pictures while you are reading stories. The story book naturally becomes a picture book in the child's mind. When you are reading a story, stop occasionally and have him form his own picture of it. You will find that he can easily see little Red Riding Hood going down the road to her grandmother's house. Encourage this habit of mental picturing of all stories and rhymes read to the child.
This is a natural mental operation but the lack of knowledge of its importance and consequently the failure to continue it after we have learned to read is one of the great causes of our forgetting what we read so easily. If you will see to it that your child visualizes what you read to him, and as he learns to read for himself stops occasionally to picture what he has read, he will develop a wonderful memory along this line. He will study easily, retain accurately and make more progress with less effort than any child who does not visualize and is forced to depend upon repetition.
The Game of Story Telling
Read a story from the child's story book; have him make pictures of the story as you read; when you have finished, let him tell the story from his Mind's Eye picture, and see how completely he can retell it. If points are omitted, call the child's attention to them and help him to include them in his picture. When several children are together have one retell the story and the others add what they can to it. See to it that the retelling is from visual pictures. This is excellent training for future school work.
Two Results of Visualization
Beside the memory value of visual impressions of the story there is another important result. You cannot visualize the thing that you do not understand. If you do know about it you can see it clearly.