Benefits of Using Graphic Organizers in the Classroom

Graphic organizers are charts, graphs or diagrams which encourage students to see information as a component of systems rather than isolated facts. After many years of using graphic organizers in my classroom, I am a firm believer in their benefits. Graphic organizers can certainly be used as a teaching tool, but I would like to focus on the benefits as a learning tool for reading comprehension.

Here are 3 great reasons why using graphic organizers is a benefit to your students.

Improves Comprehension

The most obvious reason that I use graphic organizers in my reading classes is because of their benefit of improving reading comprehension. Using graphic organizers helps students to visualize and internalize the material they are reading/learning which leads to a better understanding and a deeper understanding of the material. We want our students to "think deeply" about their reading, but how do we help them do that? Graphic organizers are one way to accomplish this. Graphic organizers can help students organize and prioritize what they are comprehending, and through this visual organization, students are actually able to see the relationships and connections to the information they are reading and learning which leads to improved comprehension.

Benefits All Students

Sometimes, finding materials to benefit all of your students with all of their learning abilities can be difficult. No matter the learning ability of each child in your classroom, graphic organizers can benefit them all. Graphic organizers can be easily changed and altered to help with differentiated instruction for RTI or ELL's. Also, they are a perfect tool for ELL students and students with learning disabilities because they provide a hands on approach to learning. They also help all students to connect new material to prior knowledge, draw conclusions, make inferences, identify main ideas and details and to summarize.

Increases Student Engagement

Students love using graphic organizers. Because of their graphic nature in representing information in a pattern, students tend to stay focused. I know my students are highly motivated and excited to use graphic organizers. I enjoy seeing their excitement in learning.

As with any tool of instruction, modeling how to use each graphic organizer is a key component. We cannot simply expect to assign a story and distribute graphic organizers with the instructions of, "Ok. Read this story and complete the graphic organizer." Teacher instruction on how to use the graphic organizer is vital for success of graphic organizers as a learning tool. Modeling each new type of g.o. is very important to the success of your students. This can be done whole group with chart paper or a document camera. Another key component is feedback. Without proper feedback, students will not improve their responses to reading. I like to have partners or tables share, but to ensure that students are seeing and hearing high quality responses, I like to choose 2 or 3 students' responses to share with the class. (I usually place these under my document camera so the student can see the responses as well.) This has proven to be a very effective way of helping all student improve on their writing responses on their graphic organizers.

If you are not using graphic organizers in your reading class, I highly recommend trying them in your classroom. Over the years, I have definitely seen the benefits of this reading comprehension tool, and they have become one of my favorite strategies that I use in my classroom.

If you are looking for some great free graphic organizers to use with your students, I have some in my store.

Also, be sure to check out my best selling graphic organizers. They are one of my favorite sets, and I use them in my own classroom!

Have a blessed day!