Which element of reading comprehension strategies includes creating mental images to facilitate understanding?

Visualizing is a crucial reading comprehension strategy that involves creating mental images based on the text. This process helps readers engage more deeply with the material and enhances their understanding. By forming vivid pictures in their mind, readers can connect with the content on a personal level, making it easier to remember details and grasp complex ideas. Visualization supports comprehension by allowing readers to "see" the narrative or concepts, which can lead to a more instinctive and emotional response to the text.

In contrast, summarizing involves distilling the main ideas from the text into a concise overview, which is helpful for capturing essential information but doesn't necessarily engage the imagination in the same way visualizing does. Inferring requires readers to draw conclusions based on implicit information in the text and their own prior knowledge; it relies more on deductive reasoning rather than imagery. Clarifying focuses on resolving confusion about specific content or vocabulary within the text, which is more about understanding than the imaginative process of visualizing.