Today, at my lesson at NACOS, Michiko Sensei is teaching me the concept of having an image of what you’re reading, while you are reading it. She explained that you can read Japanese by just memorizing characters and not really understand what you are saying. But this is not the correct way because you’re not really learning Japanese… you’re just reading characters. Instead, she said you have to have an image of what you’re reading in your head, so that you read with feeling. In this way, you can improve your reading because you actually understand the feeling and thought behind what is being read… instead of just reading characters.