3 Games To Enhance Visual Thinking

Without needing to be professional artists, people always had the facility to communicate through images. Although this creative aspect was long neglected, its benefits have sparked a powerful revival that continues to gain followers.

For generations, education focused on writing and training and understanding written messages. This has been, for centuries, the main form of message transmission throughout the world. However, promoting visual thinking has become a priority for many educators in recent years. What is its importance?

Visual thinking is a technique that involves communicating through images the central message of what you want to convey. It is a capacity that favors learning from many aspects.

In the first place, enhancing visual thinking serves to develop information organization strategies. Consequently, by arranging it in our mind in a non-linear way, data retention is improved.

Those who support the inclusion of visual thinking among the skills to work from an early age point out that it is an innate skill that does not need to be learned. This is different from written communication, for example.

Drawings for communication purposes have always been around. Just think of the drawings found in the caves to confirm this. In other words, visual thinking is one of the most primitive ways of human beings to organize and communicate their perception of reality.

Advantages of visual thinking

The benefits of enhancing visual thinking lie mainly in the growing prevalence of this type of message in society. Digital devices are a faithful example of this.

These are the main virtues of this type of thinking:

• Preference: most of society prefers images over words. What is the first thing you see when you pick up a journal? The title or the cover image?
• Universality: Unlike oral or written words, images allow us to communicate with speakers of other languages ​​without problems.

• Organization: graphs and maps are a very efficient way of schematizing information and favor its memorization.
• Ease: 75% of people think visually and not in words. Also, it is an innate ability and we do not need to be experts in it to use it.

3 games to enhance visual thinking

Now, how is it possible to enhance visual thinking? Here are some activities that can contribute to these ends.

1.- Brainstorming

This game is aimed at older children. To practice it, you need a deck of cards with pictures and a group of at least three kids.

The game consists of taking two cards at random and relating the two concepts that they express in a sentence. For example, if we take a letter with the image of the ocean and another with a tomato, the answer could be “Red Sea”; This relates the water to the color of the fruit.

2.- Narrate with images

An excellent dynamic to do in a group, especially if there are many participants. The goal is to build a story step by step with the help of each member. Each one must take a picture and must not look at it.

To begin, the first child looks at his image and improvises a story that has to do with it. When it ends, the second player looks at his card and continues the story by adding the image he was given.

This should continue until all the children have narrated their fragment; then you can do a second round and continue with the story.

3.- Form sentences

This game is very efficient at combining visual skills with written production skills. What does it consist of? We must offer a deck of cards with pictures on them so that each child takes at least four of them. The more cards are drawn, the more difficult the activity will have.

Then all the cards should be used to make sentences that connect all the pictures. For example, if we are touched by the image of a child, a dog, the sun and a tree, the sentence could be: “Pedro takes his dog Teo for a walk in the park every sunny day”.

It is also possible to vary the activity to incorporate the practice of drawing. So instead of creating sentences from pictures, sentences should be taken and broken down into one or more graphic representations.

Paradigm shift

For many decades, logical thinking was prioritized over creative in educational institutions. However, that trend is slowly reversing. The argument is that the effervescent and changing reality that we face demands a mind capable of adapting to the context and designing new solutions.

For all this, promoting visual thinking becomes almost an obligation for today’s little ones. In the future, it may be one of the most useful skills to highlight in an innovative and revolutionary context.