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Building Literacy 4-6

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Building Literacy 4-6 > Strategies > Graphic Organizer

Graphic Organizer

Overview

Visualizing how ideas fit together helps students construct meaning and strengthens their recall. Graphic organizers outsource the memory demands of a task by mimicking the brain's mental schema, supporting students' cognitive development and, in turn, their literacy skills.

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    Example: Use This Strategy In in the Classroom

  • For learners with low Working Memory, graphic organizers structure and hold onto the information for them. When learners record and review their notes in graphic organizers, they are able to recall this information more easily because they have repeatedly worked with it. This helps develop Verbal Reasoning skills, as learners can more easily connect information across a reading and with their own Background Knowledge.

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  • Graphic organizers that can be manipulated—layout, shapes, colors, fonts—provide even more support for developing readers and writers. The ability to personalize also drives Motivation and positive Emotion, which are critical to wanting to learn.

    • Factors Supported by this Strategy

    Learner Background
    Safety
    Background Knowledge
    Socioeconomic Status
    Sleep
    Physical Well-being
    Primary Language
    Hearing
    Adverse Experiences
    Social and Emotional Learning
    Motivation
    Sense of Belonging
    Emotion
    Cognition
    Speed of Processing
    Short-term Memory
    Working Memory
    Inhibition
    Long-term Memory
    Metacognition
    Attention
    Language and Literacy
    Background Knowledge

    More Visual Learning Tools Strategies

    Advance Graphic Organizer

    Advance graphic organizers link prior knowledge to upcoming learning to help students anticipate and understand the structure of new information.

    Pictures & Visuals

    Visuals help students recognize relationships within words and sentences to develop literacy skills.

    Sentence Frames

    Sentence frames or stems provide language support for students' writing and participation in academic discussions.

    Videos

    Providing visuals to introduce, support, or review instruction activates more cognitive processes to support learning.

    Videos: SEL Topics

    Videos developed with discussion guides can teach students about social and emotional learning (SEL) skills.

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