A Great Tool To Help Students Organize Thoughts and Ideas

A graphic organizer is a simple paper tool that uses drawings or words to express knowledge, thoughts, or ideas. They are particularly helpful for young students to organize and sequence facts, concepts or steps for problem solving. Here are some templates for graphic organizers.

When you help a young child organize a story he is reading, you greatly increase his comprehension. When he’s working with nonfiction or informational text, a graphic organizer can help him understand and apply facts and information. They allow him to visualize thoughts about characters, actions, and settings in stories, or pertinent and important facts that need to be remembered from nonfiction. Graphic organizers can be used:

• Prereading, to help a child predict what might happen;
• During reading, to help him keep the story in sequence;
• Post reading, to check for her comprehension, or to go back to the text to look for evidence.

Graphic organizers are wonderful for writing and math, as well:

• A story map can help your child write the correct sequence of her thoughts to paper.
• A simple Venn diagram can help him organize odd and even numbers to 21.

Using graphic organizers is a perfect way for parents to assist their young student with reading comprehension, sequencing events for a writing assignment, or outlining math steps.