How a graphic organiser can help your child with comprehension

How a Graphic Organiser can help kids with reading comprehension

September 28, 2023

Some of our best educational tools have been hanging around forever, waiting to be re-discovered. In reading a recent article by Jennifer Gonzalez from The Cult of Pedagogy , I was reminded of the usefulness of the graphic organiser. Yes, everything she mentioned rings true with us at Literacy for Boys & Literacy for Kids, especially in helping our students to gain meaning from text.

Let’s look at how mums and dads can use this tool (and with end of term assessments looming, we hope that it helps!).

5 Parent-friendly uses for the Graphic Organiser

Here’s a short review of how to use graphic organisers that Gonzales says will, “help cement learning more firmly than a lot of the other stuff we try, in a lot less time.”

NOTE TAKING: Use it to take notes on their reading when doing research. writing a book review or while watching a film.
CONNECTING IDEAS: Present content in a graphic organiser to instantly show your child how the concepts connect.
PRE-READING: Comprehension gets a boost if your child can see the text structure i.e. sequence, problem/solution, description, cause/effect, compare/contrast. Click here for an example.
TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS: When your child has to write an exposition or argument consider having them add a graphic organizer to their finished product to illustrate a concept.
RETRIEVAL PRACTICE: Or ‘Brain Dump’ (kids love this term!) is where your child can try to recall as much as they can about a topic. Then get your son or daughter to refer to books/information to clarify or add to their topic.

Ready to go printables

a) The Hamburger paragraph – this will appeal to all kids! Download here

b) Introduce your kids to the OREO graphic organiser. This cleverly uses the popular biscuit to help them remember the structural order of the paragraph: Opinion, Reason, Example. Opinion. Download here.

c) A large variety of attractive printables to suit every child and every task. Download here

Something extra…

Here’s a short 4 minute clip about how to use graphic organisers (don’t be worried that it’s aimed at teachers, you’ll still find it useful). Well worth a look as topic webs/graphic organisers are different to brainstorming. We believe that there’s some easy tips here about how to use these in order to assist your child in processing information.