Tool for Reading Comprehension: Graphic Organizers OMHS – March 3, 2008

Tool for Reading Tool for Reading Comprehension:Comprehension:

Graphic OrganizersGraphic Organizers

Tool for Reading Tool for Reading Comprehension:Comprehension:

Graphic OrganizersGraphic Organizers

OMHS – March 3, 2008OMHS – March 3, 2008

Graphic ResponsesDrawing and writing are branches of

the same cognitive tree.Graphic mode better fits some

students’ learning style.All learners have varying degrees of

visual intelligence (Gardner, 1999).

The Importance of Visuals

• Authors expect readers to visualize concrete and abstract ideas. Teachers must help students cultivate visual abilities as they learn.

• Visuals summarize text information by showing, not telling.

• Visuals are helpful in all three stages of reading: before, during, and after.

Types of Visuals• Pictures• Videos• Maps• Graphic organizers such as

diagrams, charts and tables

Differences• Pictures, videos, and maps show

physical descriptions of a text’s information and images.

• Graphic Organizers are drawings that use geometric shapes or tables to show connections between pieces of information (Hyerle, 1996).

Benefits of Graphic Organizers

• Support all learners, but especially those with special needs

• Provide structure and guidance as readers move toward greater independence

• Offer a visual means of explaining and organizing information and ideas

• Ask students to evaluate and actively manipulate information, thus seeing connections and relationships between ideas

Continued• Teach students to think categorically• Help to prepare for and facilitate writing,

thinking, and discussing• Help students remember and make

greater cognitive associations between information and ideas

• Force students to evaluate information in order to determine what is important

Continued• Prepare students for the world of work,

where such tools are used with increasing frequency

• Improve readers’ understanding of the text

• Help to develop students’ knowledge of textual structures and their general textual intelligence

When To Use GOsClassify ideas, words, and characters prior

to writing about or discussing a textOrganize a sequence in a process they are

reading aboutTake parallel notes – comparing text with

experiment or lecture Determine what is important in a textUnderstand the organizational pattern of

the information or story

Design Their Own• Students who learn to make their own

graphic organizers are far better at remembering and understanding the information in texts than those students who just fill out a GO made up by the teacher (Peregoy & Boyle, 2000).

• It reinforces their understanding of the material by requiring them to reconstruct the information in their own words and to create connections.

Assessing with Graphic Organizers

• Can give you the chance to assess informally the ways in which students are understanding text information

• Simple rubrics or checklists that go with the graphics can be used

Example Rubric for a Venn Diagram

• Correctly identifies four shared features• Correctly identifies three contrasting

features on each side• Uses examples and evidence from text

to support statements• Makes valid inferences and hypotheses• Summarizes using own words• Effectively explains to partner how to

use the GO

Types of Graphic Responses

• Clustering• Semantic Webs and Organizers• Story Maps• Venn Diagrams• Time Lines• Flow Charts• Drawing/Sketching• Cartoons

Clustering• A special form of representing-to-learn• Right-brained outlining• Key concept, term, or name in center

circle with free association in outer circles in whatever pattern seems right

• Often reveals unrecognized connections and relationships

• Great for calling up prior knowledge or recollecting lost information

Semantic Webs and Organizers

• Maps or diagrams of ideas that help us remember terms, concepts, ingredients, or relationships

• Help students chart content or knowledge in order to plug it into their brain or memorize it

• Used for hierarchically organizing information

• Outlines presented in visual form

Story Maps• Diagrams or maps of the events in

a story or narrative, often done chronologically

• Can apply to both literature and to historical narrative

Venn Diagrams• Two or three interlocking circles to

display the contrasts and similarities

• Help you to map out a comparison/contrast text structure

Time Lines• Another familiar combination of

graphics and writing, applied to chronology

• Works best when cartoons or other illustrations are added

Flow Charts• Help you keep track of the

sequence of events• Ideas or events arranged in their

logical, sequential order with arrows drawn between ideas to indicate how one idea or even flows into another

Drawing/Sketching• The graphic equivalent of free writing• Original drawings to illustrate ideas

found in reading, discussion, and inquiry

• Can be used to probe passages or quotations in reading materials

• Labels or captions can be mixed with lines and forms

Cartoons

• Another combination of words and drawing,

• Can be quick response or fine art• Can be a key strategy to get

reluctant writers to put words on a page (balloons or captions)

Think in Threes• Asks students to go beyond

either/or thinking (yes/no, right/wrong, good/bad)

• Encourages students to consider a subject from more than one side

Warning!• Don’t turn graphic organizers into

worksheets.• They can be misinterpreted and

overused.• They should be used sparingly and

judiciously, with careful attention to how well they fit your purpose.

• Train students to draw their own, rather than rely on wholesale photocopying.

• Use visuals more than once.

Sources• Makes Sense Strategies –

tfarmer@ALSDE.edu • Tools for Thought: Graphic

Organizers for Your Classroom by Jim Burke

• Janet Allen – www.janetallen.org