In today's classrooms, students must read, comprehend, and remember information from a wide variety of texts. Most students need to visually process information and Graphic Organizers are powerful tools that help them accomplish this.

Graphic Organizers are visual representations of a student's knowledge of concepts and topics. They provide a frame for teachers and students to visually identify important facts, organize information, and record relationships between facts and ideas.

Graphic Organizers help students:

• understand how pieces of information are related.
• increase their comprehension and recall.
• organize their observations, research, opinions, and reflections.
• prepare written assignments and presentations.
• problem solve and integrate their thinking, reading, and writing processes.
• practice higher level thinking skills and apply the skills to real-world situations

Graphic Organizers help teachers:

• explain and illustrate abstract concepts.
• focus students' attention on one part of the test while guiding them to see the overall sequence and interrelationships of the parts.
• provide second language learners with a visual image for new vocabulary and concepts.
• assist students with advance information and structure.
• review materials as a post-reading activity.
• evaluate student progress.