The more detail you see in your memory pictures and the longer you continue to visualize them, the stronger their impression.
The Author Is an Artist
In a similar manner an author sits down with his paper and ink. He sees in his mind a picture which he strives to paint. He endeavors by his mastery of words to induce you to see what he sees. He also is an artist, his canvas is your brain, and if he succeeds it is there he must impress a picture. The words on the printed page and the function of your eye are simply agencies through which he must work.
Words are vehicles of thought and they are the author's colors; their function is to reproduce objects and conditions; by their use the author conveys to your brain the impressions of size, color, form, arrangement and every detail of his thought. A very few words will create a wonderful picture, which would require hours for the artist to paint.
When you look at the artist's painting your brain sees a picture. The writer, however, is using a code requiring translation by the reader. Words do not form pictures, they are merely agencies by the use of which you can guide your mind's eye in the formation of a real mental impression. The author succeeds in his effort just in proportion as you succeed in forming a picture of what he is describing. When you rob the canvas of your brain of the impression the author strives to place there, by letting your eyes pass over the words so rapidly that your mind's eye forms no picture, then the author has failed. The mere reading of words makes no lasting impression upon the mind, but the forming of visual pictures does. You remember best those books which have consciously or unconsciously formed picture impressions on your brain. What you can now recall of what you have read is largely the recollection of these pictures.
Keep this illustration and these facts in mind in helping your children. Urge them to properly use the visual faculties and train their mind's eye to work with the physical eye.
Must Read Slowly
Words are vehicles of thought and are used by the author to convey pictures to the mind, but at first the mind's eye is unable to picture the thought as rapidly as the physical eye can read. The first essential to remembering what you are reading is to read slowly, hesitating occasionally, to be sure that a picture is being formed.