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Graphic Organizers Support Reading and Writing
for primary grade students
Used in conjunction with reading and writing, graphic organizers enhance the ability to remember concepts, comprehend interrelationships among ideas, and understand abstract thinking. The visual nature of these tools provides a framework for students to organize and arrange information. As a student provides a written or drawn response to a story, these insights will deepen and widen their understanding and give students a structure with which to organize their own texts.
It is common for teachers to use graphic organizers as pre-writing tools. Consider using a variety of organizers in response to reading to aid students as they seek to understand characters, narrative text structures, informational texts and even word meanings. These visual tools are especially valuable in assisting students in understanding the structure of expository text, enabling them to remember what they read and to write or draw summary statements. For example, use a K-W-L chart format to map what is learned about insects from the Big Book of Bugs (Greenaway, 2000), asking students to write or draw what is known and then subsequently learned about the topic.
Graphic organizers can be found both in both print and electronic forms. Kidspiration™ is a popular, concept-mapping software application, which allows primary students to use both words and pictures to express and organize ideas. Do a Google search online for “graphic organizers” to find a variety of free templates that can be downloaded and printed for classroom use.
No matter where you find them, using graphic organizers is an effective way to facilitate interactive and focused discussions, which support the process of comprehension. Check out these organizers as your students respond to both narrative and informational texts.
| Understand Characters |
Use pictures and words to describe a character. |
Kidspiration Character Template |
Show similarities and differences among characters. |
visit this site to create your own
Venn Diagram
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| Understand Narrative Text Structure |
Use pictures and words to describe a story’s characters, setting, plot, and author’s purpose. |
Kidspiration Story Web Template |
Introduce the concepts of beginning, middle, and end. |
visit this site to download a Story Train
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| Grasp Informational Texts |
Use pictures and words to tell what a student knows about a topic, what they want to know, and what they learned. |
Kidspiration KWL Template |
| Analyze Word Meanings |
Use pictures, words, and sentences to analyze a new word. |
Kidspiration Vocabulary Word Template |
Kidspiration is a trademarked product of Inspiration Software, Inc. Product information, free demos and instructional resources can be found at their website: http://www.inspiration.com.
Greenaway, T. (2000). Big Book of Bugs. New York: Dorling Kindersley Preschool.
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